Georgism , in modern times also called Geoism , [ 2 ] [ 3 ] and known historically as the single tax movement , is an economic ideology holding that people should own the value that they produce themselves, while the economic rent derived from land —including from all natural resources , the commons , and urban locations—should belong equally to all members of society. Georgism is concerned with the distribution of economic rent caused by land ownership, natural monopolies , pollution rights, and control of the commons, including title of ownership for natural resources and other contrived privileges e.
Any natural resource that is inherently limited in supply can generate economic rent, but the classical and most significant example of land monopoly involves the extraction of common ground rent from valuable urban locations.
Georgists argue that taxing economic rent is efficient , fair, and equitable. The main Georgist policy recommendation is a tax assessed on land value, arguing that revenues from a land value tax LVT can be used to reduce or eliminate existing taxes such as on income , trade , or purchases that are unfair and inefficient. Some Georgists also advocate for the return of surplus public revenue to the people by means of a basic income or citizen's dividend. Henry George popularized the concept of gaining public revenues mainly from land and natural resource privileges with his first book, Progress and Poverty Georgist ideas were popular and influential during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Early devotees of George's economic philosophy were often termed Single Taxers for their political goal of raising public revenue mainly or only from a land-value tax, although Georgists endorsed multiple forms of rent capture e. Henry George is best known for popularizing the argument that government should be funded by a tax on land rent rather than taxes on labor.
George believed that although scientific experiments could not be performed in political economy, theories could be tested by comparing different societies with different conditions and by thought experiments about the effects of various factors. In his most celebrated book, Progress and Poverty , George argues that the appropriation of land rent for private use contributes to persistent poverty in spite of technological progress, and causes economies to exhibit a tendency toward boom-and-bust cycles.
