(cross-posted at The Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice’s Blog)
The most common Google search that brings people to this site is ‘Geoism’. It is of course referring to this post.
This belated comment has just come to my attention so I thought it would be remiss of me to leave it tucked away in archives. So Karl, here’s your right of reply:
hammy you certainly raise some valid points but these are common misconceptions to this rather radical change to the way our activities are guided. Geonomics (my preferred term over geoism/ georgism) targets the most unique economic asset. Land. At present those wealthy enuff to own a piece of the earth are subsidised to own even more (negative gearing). This means land is hoarded. No wonder we cant afford to buy land i hear you screaming! A Resource Rental charge forces this land to be put onto the market. This increased supply pushes the price down. So land doesnt become too expensive.
There is enough wealth in the land (incl. oil, coal, water rights, electromagnetic spectrum) to provide more than enought for FREE health and education. check stats here: http://www.earthsharing.org.au/taxcom.html
Structural change like resource rents, combined with the more trendy behavioural change is what we need to make people accountable for the use of the planet. the fact that there is so much wealth hidden in the vast amounts of hoarded land means that we dont need to charge resources thru the nose, we just need to ensure it is included in the accounting equation. this avoids the danger of the poor not being able to pay for food/water. did some corporation create the value of the planet? or should this value be shared amongst the community, abolishing the need for taxation.
to answer another of your points, economies of scale wont be discouraged in productive activities, they will only be curtailed in speculative activities. this is the key difference in todays economics, some work, but the privileged speculate on our pyramid society.
no doubt it is arresting to consider this 1st off, but investigate 1 of the co-founders of the US greens, Jeff Smith and his fresh writing
http://www.progress.org/geonomy/
Einstein, alfred deakin and recents like joseph stiglitz and herman daly have all stated the effectiveness of this system.
ahh finally i get this off my list, email for more, what the future cant ignore!
I’m still not convinced and still think it falls down in terms of its conceptualisation of the environment (too resource for human consumption based) and I’m not convinced it passes the economies of scale test but I’ll have to read a little further.
