[benj]

People believe fair to be a subjective term. However, I postulate than at least in the affairs of men, it is possible to define fair, and test that empirically. For something to be fair it must be optimally efficient. So fairness and efficiency are one and the same thing. Thus we get the following statement.

Fair economic system=fair distribution of the factors of production=aligned incentives=optimal efficiency.

A fair distribution of the factors being, produced factors remain private and untaxed, and the value derived from unproduced factors, Land and other economic rents, shared equally.

Today's discourse that more wealth creation or more equality are mutually exclusive is therefore erroneous.

In a World where the value of Land is zero, a Poll Tax would be the only necessary form of paying for State services.

However, due to agglomeration effects, and the location needed to access it, Land will continue to return an ever greater share of GDP.

As all costs, including taxes and interest rates, lower rental incomes and selling prices, all taxes are "land taxes". They only differ in their distributional fairness thus their efficiency.

It is fair, thus efficient, to collect land rent directly from landowners, rather than indirectly by penalising wealth creation by taxing it.

The main inefficiencies characterised by taxing land indirectly are a) deadweight loss of taxation b) deadweight loss from freeholders imputing rent c) deadweight loss from excessive inequality causing diseconomies of scale d) deadweight loss from rent seeking activities that produce no welfare ie landlords/bankers/idle rich/accountants/tax lawyers/excessive numbers of people employed in the real estate industry/government bureaucrats etc e) deadweight loss from conditionality of welfare/benefits.

[quetzalcoatl]

The insane worship at the altar of efficiency, to the exclusion of all other normative values, is what makes neoclassical economics so repugnant. Efficiency has nothing to do with fairness. The relative value as society assigns to efficiency is always balanced against other values.

[benj]

The insane worship at the altar of efficiency, to the exclusion of all other normative values, is what makes neoclassical economics so repugnant. Efficiency has nothing to do with fairness. The relative value as society assigns to efficiency is always balanced against other values.

Oks, can you give me an example for where something is fair but not efficient? You have to remember efficiency relates to welfare just as much as it does to GDP. So, given that to say fair=efficient is rather platitudinous. However, we can take that and go a step further and apply it to public finance, inequality and economic policy. With things that can be measured empirically. Distribution and deadweight costs.

Sure, the cost/benefit of caring for the disable is not so easy, but we do it. And that's quite correct.

I'm attempting to show the main concerns of economics and politics are simple in concept and easy to solve. What is fair is efficient. Simple.

[Harmattan]

Oks, can you give me an example for where something is fair but not efficient?

Forbidding automobiles so that the horse industry is not disturbed, so that those mostly independent craftsmen are not replaced by factory workers performing repetitive jobs in highly populated centers
Fair but inefficient on the long term when we consider how much technological progress and taylorism shrinked our workload.

[benj]

Forbidding automobiles so that the horse industry is not disturbed, so that those mostly independent craftsmen are not replaced by factory workers performing repetitive jobs in highly populated centers
Fair but inefficient on the long term when we consider how much technological progress and taylorism shrinked our workload.

Forbidding something that favours the vast majority, measurable in terms of output, and welfare, over a tiny minority, is obviously unfair.

You could at least try difficult examples involving life support machines/terminally ill/disabled.

But that's really besides the point, as it involves the choices of how we spend efficiently the resources we own or we've pooled together. Quite interesting but no big deal IMO .

What is a big deal is how we distribute the factors needing to create wealth, and the incomes derived from them. Is there one way that is objectively efficient and fair?

If there is, it effectively puts to an end most of the arguments in politics and economics.

[Truth To Power]

The insane worship at the altar of efficiency, to the exclusion of all other normative values, is what makes neoclassical economics so repugnant.

IMO benj's point is that neoclassical ideas of efficiency are incorrect, because they take private ownership of natural resources as a given, and the resulting perverse incentives as therefore efficient.

Efficiency has nothing to do with fairness.

That is definitely incorrect, because fairness is tightly bound to accurate incentives, which in turn promote efficiency.

The relative value as society assigns to efficiency is always balanced against other values.

benj's point is that correct understanding removes the need for any such trade-off. We can have it all.

[mikema63]

People believe fair to be a subjective term. However, I postulate than at least in the affairs of men, it is possible to define fair, and test that empirically. For something to be fair it must be optimally efficient.

Here already you've failed in proving your point. You cannot simply declare a definition of fairness without discussing why we should even accept this first premise. You've simply asserted this and then moved on with a faulty premise.

Fair already has a definition.

free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fair

What it means for something to be just has been argued since the time of socrates. It is my philosophical opinion that when people say something is just or unjust they are essentially stating how they feel about a particular situation. Some may feel that it is unjust to fire someone because you can get a machine to do something more cheaply. Others may feel it's unjust to deny people the economic benefit. This is inherently subjective, which renders fairness subjective.

None of your argument follows then, even if I grant you all your other premises.

A fair distribution of the factors being, produced factors remain private and untaxed, and the value derived from unproduced factors, Land and other economic rents, shared equally.

This premise also need support to be taken seriously, you cannot just assert that private and untaxed economies are more efficient. They are not in fact. Monopolies are inherently inefficient because they have no free market control of their prices that force their product to approach it's actual economic value. The only limit on the price for a monopoly is peoples actual ability to pay, and the limits of their ability to manipulate the competition and the government to prevent competition. Without some level of regulation and government control, this is not optimally efficient. This is only one example among many of inefficiencies created by a completely "free" market. Another is something like power or water. How is it economically efficient to have dozens of separate power grids? That is incredibly wasteful.

Today's discourse that more wealth creation or more equality are mutually exclusive is therefore erroneous.

You mischaracterize the discourse. Wealth creation is not the same as wealth accumulation. The vast majority of the very wealthy do not create all that much wealth, they accumulate wealth by owning property. Unless you think simply owning stock inherently creates some sort of value I don't see how you can justify this as fair, or wealth creation. By simply having money and blindly throwing it into mutual funds the wealthy get ever more money with no actual effort. How is it that when a rich man watches TV he can make thousands of dollars, but when a poor person does they make nothing? What is the difference in the value these two people have created?

In a World where the value of Land is zero, a Poll Tax would be the only necessary form of paying for State services

The value of land is not, nor will it ever be, zero. Land has value. It also doesn't follow that a poll tax would pay for anything. Unless the intention is to set a very high poll tax so that only the wealthy may vote.

As all costs, including taxes and interest rates, lower rental incomes and selling prices, all taxes are "land taxes". They only differ in their distributional fairness thus their efficiency.

So an income tax lowers your rent? That doesn't even make sense. Especially when applied to the very wealthy. If you tax a million dollars extra off a billionaire, he wont downsize his 20 houses.

It is fair, thus efficient, to collect land rent directly from landowners, rather than indirectly by penalising wealth creation by taxing it.

Only if you accept your origional premise, which is completely baseless.

The main inefficiencies characterised by taxing land indirectly are a) deadweight loss of taxation b) deadweight loss from freeholders imputing rent c) deadweight loss from excessive inequality causing diseconomies of scale d) deadweight loss from rent seeking activities that produce no welfare ie landlords/bankers/idle rich/accountants/tax lawyers/excessive numbers of people employed in the real estate industry/government bureaucrats etc e) deadweight loss from conditionality of welfare/benefits.

Since you've done nothing to prove your origional premise, none of this matters. Even if this is all true.

Oks, can you give me an example for where something is fair but not efficient?

Trial by jury, extremely inefficient. Public defenders are costly and inefficient (wasting money to defend people who don't add much to the economy). Democracy. Giving to charity. Curing malaria. Treating the sick when they cant pay. These and a whole host of other things are fair but inefficient.

You have to remember efficiency relates to welfare just as much as it does to GDP.

Welfare itself is inefficient, you can argue about the relative efficiency of various welfare programs, but all welfare causes wages to go up and tax's these magical "wealth creators" to give money to people who don't add to the economy. The people on welfare are "deadweight" under a system that only values efficiency.

So, given that to say fair=efficient is rather platitudinous. However, we can take that and go a step further and apply it to public finance, inequality and economic policy. With things that can be measured empirically. Distribution and deadweight costs.

I repeat myself, you cannot assert the initial premise without evidence to support it. This premise is patently false.

Sure, the cost/benefit of caring for the disable is not so easy, but we do it. And that's quite correct.

This line didn't even make sense. What cost benefit? What benefit is there to the economy to spend money on people who cannot work? Why is it simply "correct"?

I'm attempting to show the main concerns of economics and politics are simple in concept and easy to solve. What is fair is efficient. Simple.

So simple one must wonder why so many would rebel against being reduced to nothing more than their ability to add to the economy. It's almost like people themselves are not simple, and complex systems of many multitudes of people are even less simple. Especially when different people value different things.

Forbidding something that favours the vast majority, measurable in terms of output, and welfare, over a tiny minority, is obviously unfair.

You cannot assert it as obvious, it isn't obvious that the measurements you have and use actually speak to a persons values. You cannot pick a metric because you value it and then assert that everyone must value it.

You could at least try difficult examples involving life support machines/terminally ill/disabled.

It's not necessary, even a straight forward example that everyone can agree on like banning cars is perfectly able to disprove your point. Values are subjective, what people consider fair is subjective. The people who lost their jobs no doubt would be liable to think banning cars would be wonderfully fair.

But that's really besides the point, as it involves the choices of how we spend efficiently the resources we own or we've pooled together. Quite interesting but no big deal IMO .

What we do with resources is a massively big deal, especially if your premise is that everything should be as efficient as possible. Spending resource on frivolities is inefficient. Everything should be saved and used to "create wealth" and only the basic necessities should be purchased. This is the optimally efficient outcome.

What is a big deal is how we distribute the factors needing to create wealth, and the incomes derived from them. Is there one way that is objectively efficient and fair?

No, private ownership of the means of production is inherently unfair because it gives the small group of people that own most if not all of the factors of production massive power over the lives of the people who do not.

If there is, it effectively puts to an end most of the arguments in politics and economics.

Politics is value laden, values are subjective, people will always disagree.

[Truth To Power]

People believe fair to be a subjective term. However, I postulate than at least in the affairs of men, it is possible to define fair, and test that empirically.

Maybe.

For something to be fair it must be optimally efficient.

This is too strong a claim. Plus, you have not defined "efficient."

Lotteries, e.g., are generally considered fair, but they are prima facie not efficient.

So fairness and efficiency are one and the same thing.

We wouldn't have different words for them if they were the same.

Thus we get the following statement.

Fair economic system=fair distribution of the factors of production

That's a reasonable implication, but not a reasonable identity: what about the distribution of the products of production?

=aligned incentives=optimal efficiency.

IMO that's a much more defensible statement.

A fair distribution of the factors being, produced factors remain private and untaxed, and the value derived from unproduced factors, Land and other economic rents, shared equally.

Though land is unproduced, its rental value is not. It comes mainly from government services and infrastructure, so the government employees and contractors who provide those benefits have a better claim to the land value than the general population.

Today's discourse that more wealth creation or more equality are mutually exclusive is therefore erroneous.

OK.

In a World where the value of Land is zero, a Poll Tax would be the only necessary form of paying for State services.

But poll taxes don't work, because some people can't afford them. They are also massively unfair, because people don't all benefit equally from government spending.

However, due to agglomeration effects, and the location needed to access it, Land will continue to return an ever greater share of GDP.

Looks like.

As all costs, including taxes and interest rates, lower rental incomes and selling prices, all taxes are "land taxes".

That's an erroneous interpretation of the effects of elasticity. A tax on, say, government bonds would not commensurately reduce land rents, because it would have virtually no effect on the differential productivity of locations.

They only differ in their distributional fairness thus their efficiency.

Again, that's not exactly true.

It is fair, thus efficient, to collect land rent directly from landowners, rather than indirectly by penalising wealth creation by taxing it.

It is both fair and efficient, but the implication (that one implies the other) is not valid.

The main inefficiencies characterised by taxing land indirectly are a) deadweight loss of taxation b) deadweight loss from freeholders imputing rent c) deadweight loss from excessive inequality causing diseconomies of scale d) deadweight loss from rent seeking activities that produce no welfare ie landlords/bankers/idle rich/accountants/tax lawyers/excessive numbers of people employed in the real estate industry/government bureaucrats etc e) deadweight loss from conditionality of welfare/benefits.

It's not clear that those are the main inefficiencies. Maybe the inefficiencies caused by the effects of land speculation on the financial system are even greater.

[benj]

This is too strong a claim. Plus, you have not defined "efficient."

Strong yes, but true. Efficient is welfare and wealth maximising.

Lotteries, e.g., are generally considered fair, but they are prima facie not efficient.

We'd have to cost/benefit the welfare created per $ spent vs the curse of false dreams gambling etc for example

We wouldn't have different words for them if they were the same.

Ok not the same but directly related hence the =. mutually inclusive

That's a reasonable implication, but not a reasonable identity: what about the distribution of the products of production?

We assume people pay and get paid fair compensation for what they produce in a competitive market. Which is what everyone agrees to be fair and optimally efficient on a microeconomic level (?) I'm just scaling that principle up to macroeconomic (?) levels.

Though land is unproduced, its rental value is not. It comes mainly from government services and infrastructure, so the government employees and contractors who provide those benefits have a better claim to the land value than the general population.

Well, with all respect I'd disagree. The value of Land only comes from demand. Demand is shifted, supply created. Aggregate demand only comes from the productive surplus from the scaling effect of agglomeration. In order to tap into that, like any natural resource, we need location. Agglomeration is the most valuable land we have. Suppliers of capital merely tap into it. Landowners charge a ransom fee for that opportunity.

But poll taxes don't work, because some people can't afford them. They are also massively unfair, because people don't all benefit equally from government spending.

Yes, but my point was, in a World of zero Land values they would. In a World of zero Land values all wages would be equal and all amenities would be evenly spread (like some Marxist hell on Earth). Point is taxes as a % of produced wealth are axiomatically wrong as they are unnecessary.

That's an erroneous interpretation of the effects of elasticity. A tax on, say, government bonds would not commensurately reduce land rents, because it would have virtually no effect on the differential productivity of locations.

Leaving deadweight losses to one side I'm sure you know it doesn't matter who pays property taxes, the incidence is always on the landowner. But that is the same for all extra costs, including other taxes. Because they reduce disposable incomes. But yes, there are huge fairness and efficiency implications to taxing land rents indirectly. All roads lead to rent:)

Again, that's not exactly true.

Well, I assume you agree that anything that does lower disposable income is a defacto "land tax", so it then does boil down to fairness and thus efficiency.

It is both fair and efficient, but the implication (that one implies the other) is not valid.

Well, taxing landowners doesn't penalise them, as they've produced nothing. So, yeah I am sort of saying that as all roads lead to Rome (rent), it's efficient to take the most direct path.

It's not clear that those are the main inefficiencies. Maybe the inefficiencies caused by the effects of land speculation on the financial system are even greater.

I thought I had that all covered under rent seeking.

[Harmattan]

Forbidding something that favours the vast majority, measurable in terms of output, and welfare, over a tiny minority, is obviously unfair.

It is not obviously unfair. This actually reveals a specific view on ethics, with which I disagree. I do not think it is fair to destroy the situation of a few, not privileged ones, to improve the lives of many. Where does this logic must stop? Consider from example forceful medical experiments. Fair or not? Where is the limit?

I would approve with automobiles since it would be in my interest but I think it would still be unfair.

benj's point is that correct understanding removes the need for any such trade-off. We can have it all.

Yet he is ready to sacrifice minorities on the altar of efficiency. How does it differ?

In a free market efficiency is incidentally achieved and minorities incidentally sacrificed. It is consciously for the sake of a few but it does incidentally improve the situation for the majority. Yet Benji is ready to consciously destroy the lives of a few because he decides they are worth less than the rest. In some ways it's worse. In some others it's better if you think his own interest does not weigh much (but it does).

[benj]

Here already you've failed in proving your point. You cannot simply declare a definition of fairness without discussing why we should even accept this first premise. You've simply asserted this and then moved on with a faulty premise.

Right, let's deal with all this it's all subjective stuff, the debating equivalent of "it's all relative dude".

When we are making laws and rules we have to try our best to turn the subjective into the objective, hard though that might be. So, in the US a life is valued at $10m.

Subjectively to you it's priceless. But, to the rest of us, there is a cost/benefit we have to make, else we couldn't function.

Which is why we don't ban cars in favour of horse drawn carts.

Now, are there things we all agree is fair? Like being paid for for our efforts, or paying other for theirs. Sounds fair to me. It also happens to align incentives, which is why it is an optimally efficient form of exchange and re-distribution.

All I'm doing is scaling that very same principle, that I believe all rational people agree with, up to the societal level.

In a nutshell, that really is it.

Unless you disagree that we should share this Earth as equals, or we should keep what we produce is fair, then fair=optimally efficient.

Given the ongoing debate between those who want to lower inequality vs wealth creators, this cuts through the crap.

You want max wealth creation? Great because taken to it's logical conclusion it reduces inequality.

You want to eliminate excessive inequality? Great because that also eliminates all deadweight losses.

Why? 'Cos it's empirically fair.

[benj]

It is not obviously unfair. This actually reveals a specific view on ethics, with which I disagree. I do not think it is fair to destroy the situation of a few, not privileged ones, to improve the lives of many. Where does this logic must stop? Consider from example forceful medical experiments. Fair or not? Where is the limit?

We make, and continue to make those cost/benefit judgements, based on the welfare not just of the individuals concerned, but the welfare it gives everyone above the society we live in.

Which is why spending tens of million bringing up disabled children is fair, and efficient. We get a lot of welfare for those millions.

Yet he is ready to sacrifice minorities on the altar of efficiency. How does it differ?

Which is cobblers.

[Nunt]

You cannot use "efficiciency" as athe sole way to rank policies. Efficiency can only say something about how good a policy is at achieving a certain outcome. For example, whats is the optimal tax to fund a heavy metal concert. If we can find a tax that causes almost no deadweight loss and allows us to fund a lot of heavy metal concerts per year, then this tax efficient. So efficiency can tell us something about how we should proceed if we want to achieve a certain ouctome. But efficiency cannot help us choose which outcomes are desirable.

Efficiency is a property of a desired outcome. But just because an outcome is efficient, does not make it desired.

You seem to be making a utilitarian value judgement: "maximize the aggregate utility of all members of society". But this is a value based statement that goes way further than just efficiency.

[benj]

You seem to be making a utilitarian value judgement: "maximize the aggregate utility of all members of society". But this is a value based statement that goes way further than just efficiency.

Something that is efficient maximises value, be that wealth or welfare. In that sense to say fair=efficiency is really only a banality. A platitude. Something we all agree on.

What we may disagree about is measuring the welfare part, as people value things differently. Nevertheless, it's what we all do each and every day. Not particularly interesting.

But, what might be interesting is if we apply it to policies that are concerned with wealth creation and distribution. Which is really what concerns most politicians and their economic advisers.

For example, Thomas Piketty correctly identified a problem with widening inequality. But due to his conflation of Land with Capital, then he was a) unable to prove why b) recommend a sensible policy to correct it.

If however he understood the conceptual differences between Land and Capital, then simply Fair=Efficient would have given him 100% proof and the optimal policy recommendation. Couldn't be easier.

Just to clarify the above, it is due to the fact the wealthiest own more land by value (%of total land values) than they currently pay in taxes(%of total tax). This is therefore an unfair distribution that leads to deadweight losses.

[Nunt]

Just to clarify the above, it is due to the fact the wealthiest own more land by value (%of total land values) than they currently pay in taxes(%of total tax). This is therefore an unfair distribution that leads to deadweight losses.

I still don't believe the question is reduced to just efficiency. Is widening inequality a problem if it leads to deadweight losses? Is it fair to take measures to reduce these deadweight losses? For example, one could argue that if one makes a lot of money, it is fair that he should decide what to do with that money and that a redistribution would be unfair. Is such a redistribution even efficient? Maybe its efficient if you want to create a society with a high GDP. But it's not efficient if you want to create a society in which people's property rights are respected.

Something that is efficient maximises value, be that wealth or welfare.

Something that is efficient maximizes something. But it says nothing about whether we want that thing maximized.

[benj]

Is widening inequality a problem if it leads to deadweight losses?

Yes, because it is then excessive, unfair and makes us all poorer.

Is it fair to take measures to reduce these deadweight losses? For example, one could argue that if one makes a lot of money, it is fair that he should decide what to do with that money and that a redistribution would be unfair.

Correct. Taxing someone based on what they produce is unfair, thus inefficient. We only owe the community compensation for the burdens we cause ie exclusive use of valuable Land and other negative externalities. If the person with the biggest income and the most capital only occupies marginal location, the don't owe the community a penny

Is such a redistribution even efficient? Maybe its efficient if you want to create a society with a high GDP. But it's not efficient if you want to create a society in which people's property rights are respected.

We can only get optimal GDP and welfare if peoples property rights are respected ie a fair distribution of the factors of production. Which is sort of the whole point. Once we learn what to share and what not to share we'll all get along much better. Aligned incentives so what it's all about.

And interestingly, once you realise that, then aggregate Land Rent actually becomes a better policy target than GDP as it also encompasses welfare.

Something that is efficient maximizes something. But it says nothing about whether we want that thing maximized.

Well, in terms of economics it does. Wealth and/or Welfare. Nothing more complicated than that. That's unless you want to be poor and unhappy that is, in which case not rational, so you don't count

[Truth To Power]

This is too strong a claim. Plus, you have not defined "efficient."

Strong yes, but true. Efficient is welfare and wealth maximising.

How to measure wealth and welfare? This is not a trivial problem.

Lotteries, e.g., are generally considered fair, but they are prima facie not efficient.

We'd have to cost/benefit the welfare created per $ spent vs the curse of false dreams gambling etc for example

Well, given that a large proportion of lottery winners say that they are worse off, and a third of them are poorer in five years than they were before the win, I'd say the cost/benefit is pretty clear.

That's a reasonable implication, but not a reasonable identity: what about the distribution of the products of production?

We assume people pay and get paid fair compensation for what they produce in a competitive market.

That's a somewhat heroic assumption, and it's not clear what a "competitive market" is.

Which is what everyone agrees to be fair and optimally efficient on a microeconomic level (?)

Everyone? Really?

I'm just scaling that principle up to macroeconomic (?) levels.

Micro does not scale up to macro for a number of reasons.

Though land is unproduced, its rental value is not. It comes mainly from government services and infrastructure, so the government employees and contractors who provide those benefits have a better claim to the land value than the general population.

Well, with all respect I'd disagree.

But would be wrong.

The value of Land only comes from demand.

Because supply is fixed. Right.

Demand is shifted, supply created.

Huh? Nope. You apparently just alluded to the fact that land supply is NOT created, and it is indisputable that the demand for land -- the economic advantage conferred on the user -- is created by the services and infrastructure government provides, the opportunities and amenities the community provides, and the physical qualities nature provides at a given location.

Aggregate demand only comes from the productive surplus from the scaling effect of agglomeration.

No, that's objectively false. Demand for land comes from anything that increases the user's economic advantage. Mostly, that's government-provided services and infrastructure: roads, an orderly and law-abiding community, water and sanitation systems, good public schools, etc.

In order to tap into that, like any natural resource, we need location.

The natural resource is only the physical qualities nature provides. But it is self-evident and indisputable that those physical qualities have no value at all until government and the community make the location economically advantageous by providing services, infrastructure, opportunities and amenities.

Agglomeration is the most valuable land we have.

Unable to parse.

Suppliers of capital merely tap into it.

No, that's clearly false. Without the capital, the land cannot be used advantageously. The supplier of capital is the one who enables the potential economic advantage of the land to be realized.

Landowners charge a ransom fee for that opportunity.

Right. But the land was already there, ready to be used, with no help from the landowner. The capital had to be provided by its supplier.

But poll taxes don't work, because some people can't afford them. They are also massively unfair, because people don't all benefit equally from government spending.

Yes, but my point was, in a World of zero Land values they would.

How?

In a World of zero Land values all wages would be equal and all amenities would be evenly spread (like some Marxist hell on Earth).

How?

Point is taxes as a % of produced wealth are axiomatically wrong as they are unnecessary.

Well, they are wrong for a number of reasons, superfluity being one.

That's an erroneous interpretation of the effects of elasticity. A tax on, say, government bonds would not commensurately reduce land rents, because it would have virtually no effect on the differential productivity of locations.

Leaving deadweight losses to one side I'm sure you know it doesn't matter who pays property taxes, the incidence is always on the landowner.

That is false. See Detroit, where microscopic land values have put the incidence of its quite high property taxes squarely on improvers.

But that is the same for all extra costs, including other taxes.

False, with no basis in fact.

Because they reduce disposable incomes.

But that's not the same as economic advantage.

But yes, there are huge fairness and efficiency implications to taxing land rents indirectly. All roads lead to rent:)

No, they do not. Burdens are shifted according to elasticities.

Again, that's not exactly true.

Well, I assume you agree that anything that does lower disposable income is a defacto "land tax",

Not at all. A lot of things that reduce disposable incomes -- like personal income tax -- INCREASE the subsidy to landowners, as proved by the astronomical value of land where income taxes are highest.

so it then does boil down to fairness and thus efficiency.

Again, you have a ways to go before you can make that claim.

It is both fair and efficient, but the implication (that one implies the other) is not valid.

Well, taxing landowners doesn't penalise them, as they've produced nothing.

Huh? Then why do they oppose it with such maniacal ferocity? It is precisely because they get so much while producing nothing that taxing back what they take from the community is so intolerable to them.

So, yeah I am sort of saying that as all roads lead to Rome (rent), it's efficient to take the most direct path.

It is absolutely not the case that all taxes are passed through to rent.

It's not clear that those are the main inefficiencies. Maybe the inefficiencies caused by the effects of land speculation on the financial system are even greater.

I thought I had that all covered under rent seeking.

IMO the mechanisms are different enough that we should keep them separate in our minds. Rent is generated -- and limited -- by economic activity. Debt interest on mortgages, by contrast, can increase arbitrarily to levels that must ultimately destroy the financial system.

[benj]

Land is all that which is not created by human effort.

Including the laws of the universe.

Watch this first and see what you think.

[Truth To Power]

Land is all that which is not created by human effort.

No, land is also physically tangible.

Including the laws of the universe.

No. Land is rival and excludable.

Watch this first and see what you think.

I don't see the relevance.

[benj]

I don't see the relevance.

3D space or the radio spectrum.

Human effort didn't create the the economies of scale that results from the increased size of networks. That is as much a feature of the Universe as the air you breathe. There would be no life without it. Metabolism is consumption, production, distribution. Base economics.

As explained by Prof West, without those economies of scale that modern human societies tap into , your natural metabolic rate would be 100W. As it is, because of that effect we are able to utilize, just like all life, you consume the equivalent of 20,000W.

A free market fundamentalist, looks at society and the wealth it generates, and says "that is the sum total of individual effort".

I believe Margaret Thatcher once said there was no such thing as society, just individuals.

A Socialist, looks at all the wealth, and says this is all due to humans organising themselves, with rules, laws and regulations.

The truth is, the wealth around us comes from humans agglomerating, because we can then exploit our environment in new ways . Producing Capital, like cities so we can, network more efficiently and sell goods and services in markets.

So, Geoists like me, who understand that the primary source of all life and wealth is Land, know that both Left and Right are wrong.

Land is at it's most expensive in city centres, because that's at the hub of our network, and where agglomeration effects at their highest.

Just like an deposit of oil or gold under the ground.

This is as fundamental as economics gets, and really important that those who talk about Land get it. It's the most valuable Land we have.

News ideas? Push back. It's what makes the internet great. Not.