Why Georgism Is Wrong (Part 2)

Here’s some common critiques I received on my previous essay…

Georgism is just a land value tax, bro.

No, land value taxes were advocated for (Adam Smith, Thomas Spence, David Ricardo, Mill, Mrs. Fawcett, Francois Quesnay, Anne Turgot, etc.) and existed long before Henry George. And today some countries have LVT, but no one considers them Georgist (Denmark, Singapore, Taiwan).

Georgism can be more than one tax so long as it’s a tax on negative externalities and/or rent-seeking!

No, Henry George wasn’t a Neanderthal. He existed during the 2nd Industrial Revolution when we had all sorts of taxes in part to disincentivize their usage like on whale oil, coal gas, horse-drawn carriages, sugar, alcohol, tobacco, etc. yet Henry George and the “single tax movement” advocated for repealing them all in favor of a single tax.

The most fundamental of all reforms, the reform which will make all other reforms easier, and without which no other reform will avail, is to be reached by concentrating all taxation into a tax upon the value of land, and making that heavy enough to take as near as may be the whole ground-rent for common purposes. — Henry George, Social Problems (1883)