Something that the Faux Libertarians like to do is to assume that Land Value Taxers are somehow anti-capitalists (far from it!) and hence that they are socialists (in a bad way). They then triumphantly announce that even Karl Marx spoke out against LVT. Well, neither the FLs nor I pay too much attention to what Marx said, so I fail to see why that is relevant, but as ever, it turns out that this wasn't even true, as the article on Appraiser10.com points out:
Karl Marx
Marx's criticism of land tax (as anything more than one of the measures to be imposed during a transition to communism) was relatively influential - he argued that "The whole thing is...simply an attempt, decked out with socialism, to save capitalist domination and indeed to establish it afresh on an even wider basis than its present one."
He also criticized the way land value tax theory emphasises the value of land - arguing that "Theoretically the man is utterly backward! He understands nothing about the nature of surplus value and so wanders about in speculations which follow the English model but have now been superseded even among the English, about the different portions of surplus value to which independent existence is attributed--about the relations of profit, rent, interest, etc. His fundamental dogma is that everything would be all right if ground rent were paid to the state."
However, in 1875 Marx changed his opinion on land taxation. In a letter, he wrote: "In present-day society the instruments of labour are the monopoly of the landowners (the monopoly of property in land is even the basis of the monopoly of capital) and the capitalists... the capitalist is usually not even the owner of the land on which his factory stands.
No doubt the FL's will now turn on a dime and say "We told you! Karl Marx was actually in favour of LVT, and as he was wrong on most things he was wrong about this as well, ergo LVT is a bad tax." I still don't really see why it's relevant, but hey, if Karl Marx had said the earth was round would the FL's then claim it was in fact flat?
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10 comments:
I've never got far enough into Marx to discover that.
JH, I once read the first couple of pages of Das Kapital and although he was quite right to point out that the vast majority of the population were being exploited by a minority, he failed to by whom and how this should be rectified and so I put the book down again, in any event, his ideas - as implemented in USSR, Cuba etc - don't seem to have worked in practice.
Nobody reads Marx, not even socialist "workers" (all the ones I've met are unemployed!).
Fred harrison uses Marx to good effect though, I'd much rather read a Georgist critique than suffer the source material.
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.
-- attributed to John Kenneth Galbraith
If anything, "single taxers" are better capitalists than most, since they want to shift taxes away from capital.
Maybe they can try sticking the "anti-landlord" moniker on LVT proponents.
CD, I'm not that interested in anybody's critique of anything else. I have been observing the real world with a keen eye for 25 years, observe stuff, and later establish that whatever I have observed, somebody else observed it long before me. I'd be a Georgist even if Henry George had never existed.
Snarf, that's a key bit of Homey propaganda - they have convinced people that land ownership is 'capital' and even use the word 'property' to exclusively refer to 'land and buildings'.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/may/02/land-value-tax-oecd-comment
Good article. Nice name check for Mark too. Excellent!
Thanks, Anonymous. Excellent introductory article for a newspaper.
Good to see MW being quoted.Was not aware there were any papers today; will now have to venture out to shops.(What ever happened to papers and milk being delivered? Capitalism: always making things better.)
Anon thanks! That's cheered me up. I might just mosey on down the shops.
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