My Thoughts for a Georgist Agenda
H. William Batt
[Prepared for presentation at the annual Council of
Georgist Organizations conference, held in Albuquerque, New Mexico,
July, 2004]
I have counted myself a Georgist only since 1993; I'm a tyro compared
to most of the people in this movement. I can actually date the time
and place when I very suddenly and strongly "saw the cat."
It was at the Los Angeles CGO meeting where Mason Gaffney put on a
three-day program that appealed to every part of me - its intellectual
challenge, its elementary decency, and its community of adherents. On
a hunch, Steve Cord said he'd pay my way out there, just to get me to
go. My "conversion experience," if you could call it that,
was so profound that I resolved shortly thereafter to devote the rest
of my life to the advocacy and implementation of our idea.
I was nonetheless very realistic in my decision to invest in this
movement. By nature, and throughout my life, I've been an
irrepressible reformer. I was one of the first Peace Corps Volunteers
in 1962; that experience sandwiched between my undergraduate and
graduate study in political science. But I've always elected to be
part of social causes that had a fair chance of success - I was very
early on part of the anti-smoking movement; I was for a decade a
leader of the Hemlock Society at both the state and national level;
and I've joined the Georgist cause with the same confidence that we
will be successful.
When I departed from service to the New York State Legislature in
1992, it was after working for a decade in a back-room capacity
advising the Assembly Speaker on tax policies. But I differed much
from my office colleagues in my belief that fiscal measures were as
important an instrument to effectuate other public choices as they are
for raising money. The other five seemed focused largely on
comparative revenue streams; I was concerned about measures of
neutrality, efficiency, equity, administrability, and so on. Perhaps
it was comparing various tax designs against what are the venerable
textbook principles of sound tax theory that ultimately brought me to
the view that there was something very right about taxing land value.
I understood inelasticity, but I had not yet grasped the concept of
economic rent!
I came to regard the Georgist agenda as reachable, perhaps because I
was new to it. Perhaps because I haven't witnessed decades of seeing
it ignored, pushed aside, and discarded, I saw it as fresh, appealing,
and even demonstrable. I came to Georgism at a very crucial time: data
and computer power were just beginning to make possible the empirical
demonstration of its claims in a palpable and cogent way.
Transportation costs and sprawl development were becoming focuses of
concern. For decades Georgist claims were only plausible hypotheses,
claims which, even if sound in economic theory, were only that: they
were beyond the range of being tested. Now, for the first time, the
massive databases of cities, states and even national governments
could be used to suggest, if not actually to prove, the validity of
these assertions. It was possible now, and increasingly so, to show
who would "win" and who would "lose" in a Georgist
economic regime. It was possible, even more importantly, to show where
taxes on land value would be increased or decreased, thereby
portraying in urban environments the sweeping effects of such
policies. Graphical mapping, the emerging technology applications
called GIS (geographical information systems), now made it possible to
show the power of taxation as an instrument of policy. I could show
not only where more favorable choices could be induced, but - just as
importantly - where distortions had been wrought by fiscal policies
that were destructive to community, to health, and to prudential
fiscal management. I could even identify potential new sources of
revenue that are to this day untapped, tax bases like the spectrum
that actually improve economic performance rather than dampen it. It
was all these considerations, which I could see very plainly emerging,
that led me to want to invest heavily in demonstrating the value, the
justice and the wisdom of the Georgist philosophy.
I have tried in the twelve years of my involvement in this movement
to play a small role in its promotion. I have, for example, tried to
demonstrate empirically that infrastructure investments can be paid
for by the recovered economic rent in proximate locations. My study of
what transportation people call "value capture," made it
into the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, and has
since been cited to endorse a later project in London. I took the
assessment roll of Tompkins County in upstate New York and portrayed
the differential gradients in a land "valuescape," something
now being done far more proficiently by Tony Vickers in the UK. I ran
one of the first simulations of how a shift from the conventional
property tax to a land tax would play out among various titleholders
in a community, and have now seen it become a standard exercise done
for local governments by Josh Vincent and the Center for the Study of
Economics. By collecting aggregate data on thousands of assessment
districts throughout the USA, I have been able to demonstrate the
relative constancy of the land value proportions from one municipality
to another. Showing graphically that the aggregate proportion of land
value in a municipality is typically between 40 and 50 percent, I have
been able to show that there is indeed a rich tax base from which
cities can draw, and that there is no reason at all for urban
officials to lament the emptiness of their public coffers. With
Michael Hudson, a Georgist with a far greater understanding of
economics than I have, I am working on demonstrating that the amount
of economic rent available to support of the American public sector is
easily adequate for the purpose, a figure that we know will belie the
official government figure of only 2 percent of the GDP. All these
empirical studies are quite amateurish; I am by no means sophisticated
with databases and statistics. But I am trying in my own modest way to
show that there is every reason for us to be excited about the
prospect of Georgist agendas being implemented within my lifetime.
Philosophers take pains to show that "ought implies can."
That is to say, one cannot argue that one should do something unless
it is clear first that it can be done. Only now, for the first time,
can we Georgists demonstrate that what we argue for is indeed doable:
technically, administrably, economically, and politically. This is
really exciting. If first we are able to show the technical
feasibility of our ideas by sound empirical studies, we are then in a
far better position to argue their compelling justice. Until recently,
we tended to dwell almost totally on the justice issue, and had only a
few books and articles showing the economic desirability they have.
But we are on the cusp of being able to demonstrate, massively, the
value of the truths we believe. It is an exciting time to be a
Georgist.
A last reason why we Georgists should be excited about our future is
that we hold the key to a revitalized basis of an intellectually
bankrupt Democratic Party in the US and for many other political
parties worldwide. At a time when a crude and amoral capitalism is
feeding Republican thought, and a tired and overworked socialism hangs
on in more progressive circles, we Georgists indeed reflect the "Third
Way!" Yet Georgist thought has a place in Republican thought too
- the idea of eliminating taxes on labor and capital should resonate
well in those circles. Our ideas stand for sound principles of
economic justice, just as strongly today as they did in Henry George's
time. They offer the answer to questions on how to support public
services at a time when a revolt against conventional tax designs is
sweeping the country and indeed the world. They provide a deft and
subtle means by which to foster environmental goals without the heavy
hand of police powers, litigation, and the costly economic burdens
that typically go along with such instruments. And lastly they offer a
clear, coherent, and sound belief system that political leaders can
grasp and purvey in an inspiring and defensible way. With the right
set of data, graphics, moral arguments and sound bites, there is no
reason why it can't spread like the proverbial wildfire of a
grassroots movement. It could happen at any moment. We are poised
shortly for a skillful and imaginative political figure to grasp what
we have to offer. Our material is increasingly out there; it is our
task to make it cogent and known to them, so that it is readily
understood. We need to be ready at any time for that event, for it
could come momentarily. When it comes, we should be prepared; all our
forces should be at the ready to seize the day.
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