if Henry George is right (Progress and Poverty) all "technological progress" (efficiencies) are captured by rents
ex. money saved on electricity by more efficient refrigerators just goes towards increasing the cost of land
rent-seeking tends to compound
rent-seekers get richer, enabling more rent-seeking (especially via monopoly, and regulatory capture)
estimates of how much value an LVT would capture suggest that a 30%+ of economic value currently is capture by rent-seeking
our current system does not protect sufficiently against rent-seeking
(and, in many ways, incentivizes it)
we need strong anti-rent-seeking governance (better collective fundamentals, ie better laws, tax rules... or active regulation, ex. monopoly-busting)
hundreds of years of this have led to concentrated wealth (and power) in the hands of rent-seekers
in effect, if you invent "the dishwasher" (legitimately saving people time) or a "better mousetrap" (legitimately does the same job but costing less), you may seem to be directly benefiting people, but you are actually benefiting rent-seekers
a huge blow to my motivation to be "an entrepreneur"
(because it was based on "maximizing income == maximizing value creation == maximizing good")
LVT and UBI both offer solutions/improvements to our system (without throwing out everything - because there is value to "markets", "currency", "private property" etc.)
LVT - how to end major forms of rent-seeking (and capture it for society)
which is "good" in of itself, but, also gives governments a revenue-stream
which can be used for reducing "bad" taxes (that have negative incentives to positive activity, such as land transfer taxes, or income taxes)
or, spending on public benefit (such as... UBI)
UBI - just give people money
lot of pro-UBI arguments on practical (more efficient than welfare and government programs, let the market figure things out) and moral grounds (see Widequist); independent of where the money would come from (income taxes, pigouvian taxes)
LVT + UBI synergize together
"private property" means almost all of the "land" (including materials), which are a common resource (we did not create the Earth), have been pre-allocated (they are owned by someone)
we have granted (artificial) monopolies to people backed by the threat of government-backed violence
ie. you can do what you want with this plot of land, and if someone trespasses on your rights, the police will forceable remove them
what do we owe the commons for removing these resources from the commons?
we should capture the rents (ex. by LVT) and pay them out to each person (a UBI)