Please, I know lemmy is a bit left leaning, and georgism are mostly libertarians/liberal, but the ideology is so centrist and common sense I’m sure even far left communist advocates can get behind it.
The reason Georgism fell out of favor on the left is because Marxism already develops beyond where Georgism falls flat. It’s certainly broadly appealing, in that liberals can get behind it rather quickly, but it falls short of Marxist economics in completeness, to the point that it doesn’t really bother resolving the fundamental problems with capitalist exploitation, centralization, crisis, or production and overproduction, it just focuses on rent.
It’s also very difficult to get through, it’s a reformist approach that depends on asking those that have full control of the economy to make it less exploitative. That doesn’t happen without revolution, at which point you can go far beyond and address core, systemic issues.
Leftists are aware of Goergism. They don’t generally take it seriously because it’s just ‘one weird trick’ reformism that’s trying to save capitalism from itself. It doesn’t change what capitalism is or the historical process it drives, it’ll get clawed back immediately just like every other social democratic reform, and it would cause a full on capital revolt if you somehow magic lamp’ed it into practice such that you might as well just do the real revolution and actually overthrow capitalism for the same amount of effort.
but the ideology is so centrist and common sense
I really just commented as an excuse to lol at this line.
Georgism is an ideology broadly based on taxing the full value of land, in order to prevent rentseeking.
So rather than taxing people for the property they built/bought, you tax the land which no one made.
The value of the land is based on the progress society made in that area, so when you tax the full unimproved value of the land, you prevent landlords from essentially leeching on the results of society progress that they did not directly contirubute to.
You can still buy land, but when you do you must pay full rent to the government, so technically, if the government did own all the land and lease it out for rent, it would be goergist in practice(but not in spirit, since goergism wants to protect property rights)
I don’t see how that would have worked even when it was invented.
Right now you can see how the rich own all the land and have no need to use or sell it. This way they create a shortage and can charge a higher price for the land they use or sell.
IMO the only way to break this up to stop charging property tax at all - because all land ownership goes back to the state. If someone wants to use land they rent it from the state. If they do not use or misuse rented land the land goes to a different renter (or to the state).
Hey there. Never heard of it, actually. Thanks, I’ll find a time to read about it.
What I find interesting in this particular libertarian initiative so far, is that it is addressing an existing systematic issue. Almost all other libertarians I come around seem to be speaking about their and everyone else’s morality and righteousness, naively thinking that once we all become moral and righteous, society would become as well.
To be fair, you haven’t heard of it because it isn’t particularly relevant. Marxism already develops beyond where Georgism stops, so anyone who is disgruntled with capitalism already has a much more influential, developed, and accurate framework to go with.
Exactly. Georgism could be studied as an interesting historical curiosity, but it never took off, and was a historical failure, whereas Marxism especially in the USSR and China abolished land-owning rent-seeking, and the massive economic drain that caused.
I know I’m going to get downvoted for this, but since the USSR was a historical failure and Marxists claim China isn’t actually Communist but Capitalist, can’t we say the same for Marxism? An interesting historical curiosity, but it was never actually implemented and thus can’t be said to have ever taken off.
Both Georgists and Marxists get to complain about how things would be so much better if someone would actually just do it the right way for once. I say this as a left leaning Georgist Libertarian, to my heart in the right place Marxist cousins.
This short video on obstacles to the China path in Latin America gets into exactly what we’re talking about, the abolition of the rent-seeking parasitic sector of the economy that the Chinese revolution abolished.
The USSR was a historic success. The dissolution of the USSR is one large failure, but doesn’t negate the century of success after success in proving socialism works, siding with national liberation movements, and advancing the needs of the working class. The USSR worked, economically, its dissolution was more of a political failure than one pointing to Marxism not being able to work.
The PRC is socialist, those who say it’s capitalist typically conflate markets for capitalism, when the process of sublimating private property is a gradual one once the large firms and key industries are siezed. Both the USSR and PRC are examples of socialism working.
Marxism was implemented, and still is. Rather, Marxism-Leninism is a tool for analysis and revolution, to bring about socialism, and is has many historical successes, and continues to succeed today. Marxism-Leninism is the guiding ideology of the largest economy in the world by purchasing power parity.
So no, you can’t really say the same of Marxism as you can of Georgism. Marxism works, still works, and will continue to work. Georgism was a curiosity for a while and fades while Marxism-Leninism became the defining ideology of the 20th century, and will continue to prove even more relevant thanks to the rise of the PRC over the US.
The vast and rapid modernization and industrialization of Russia at the start was a success, but my opinion is that Marxist-Leninism stopped in the USSR when Stalin seized the country and turned it into a crony dictatorship. I don’t believe that lasted long enough to be truly called a success, as it immediately fell to the authoritarianism it overthrew from the monarchy.
If you don’t think that Stalinism was the death of Marxist-Leninism in the USSR then the bread lines, famines, forced labor and relocation, imperial expansionism, etc. as broadly reported by those that lived there and lived through it are a product of socialism. I also believe that would count as failures of socialism and not proof of success.
I agree with you that the PRC is still nominally socialist, but believe they also went Stalinist instead of Marxist-Leninist. I would call them Stalinist Communist rather than socialist. I also do not think the juice was worth the squeeze with the number of dead in the revolution and aftermath, but there is no telling what an alternative would have looked like so that is just, like, my opinion man. I personally don’t consider China as a socialist success story, but instead another warning example for how easily Communism can be corrupted/captured from within.
I totally give you that Marxist-Leninism was the defining ideology of the 20th century, but I’d call it the fuse that lead to “Communism” the failed authoritarian ideology. Like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand is to WWI. That is a hell of a lot more than Georgism ever got, to be sure, but would still say there has never been a successful Marxist country because they never remain Marxist for long.
“Stalinism” isn’t an ideology. Stalin had his own policies during his time as the leader of the Soviet Union, especially Socialism in One Country as opposed to Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution, but Stalin was a Marxist-Leninist. Marxism-Leninism was synthesized by him. There was no betrayal of Marxism-Leninism until the Khruschev era, where reforms began to work against the centralized socialist system, leading to the utter disasters of the later Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras and the dissolution.
The PRC is Marxist-Leninist. There’s no such thing as “Stalinism,” to begin with, but you can’t use Stalinist to describe the PRC anyways because there’s no Stalin, so you can’t even use it to describe Stalin’s specific economic policies. Either way, over 90% of Chinese citizens approve of their government. The revolution saved countless lives and doubled life expectancies, same as in Russia.
I really don’t know what you think Marxism-Leninism is. If you want, I have an introductory reading list you can check out. It also isn’t just the guiding ideology of the USSR and PRC, but other countries like Vietnam, Cuba, and more, with similar success stories.
You’ve dismissed the other person’s political views on the premise of Marxism including the Georgism. There are reasons why this person is not aligned with other Marxists’ takes and I would like to know them. You just view yourself superior to them
Georgism is both reformist, so it requires asking the ruling class to willingly kneecap their profits, and only covers rent, really, meaning it ignores exploitation, production, imperialism, overproduction, and crisis. Marxism answers those, and is revolutionary, it’s more relevant because it works and is more complete.
Most people wouldn’t. Georgism’s appeal lies soley in that it’s closee to the current system, and would be a decent improvement if it was possible. That’s it. Marxism is both more practical and more complete.
Once again, may I introduce you to GEORGISM.
Please, I know lemmy is a bit left leaning, and georgism are mostly libertarians/liberal, but the ideology is so centrist and common sense I’m sure even far left communist advocates can get behind it.
Georgism is great but we also have problem with corporations so georgism isn’t enough. We need socialism or at least distributism
The reason Georgism fell out of favor on the left is because Marxism already develops beyond where Georgism falls flat. It’s certainly broadly appealing, in that liberals can get behind it rather quickly, but it falls short of Marxist economics in completeness, to the point that it doesn’t really bother resolving the fundamental problems with capitalist exploitation, centralization, crisis, or production and overproduction, it just focuses on rent.
It’s also very difficult to get through, it’s a reformist approach that depends on asking those that have full control of the economy to make it less exploitative. That doesn’t happen without revolution, at which point you can go far beyond and address core, systemic issues.
Leftists are aware of Goergism. They don’t generally take it seriously because it’s just ‘one weird trick’ reformism that’s trying to save capitalism from itself. It doesn’t change what capitalism is or the historical process it drives, it’ll get clawed back immediately just like every other social democratic reform, and it would cause a full on capital revolt if you somehow magic lamp’ed it into practice such that you might as well just do the real revolution and actually overthrow capitalism for the same amount of effort.
I really just commented as an excuse to lol at this line.
Can you give a TLDR for this if possible
Georgism is an ideology broadly based on taxing the full value of land, in order to prevent rentseeking.
So rather than taxing people for the property they built/bought, you tax the land which no one made.
The value of the land is based on the progress society made in that area, so when you tax the full unimproved value of the land, you prevent landlords from essentially leeching on the results of society progress that they did not directly contirubute to.
You can still buy land, but when you do you must pay full rent to the government, so technically, if the government did own all the land and lease it out for rent, it would be goergist in practice(but not in spirit, since goergism wants to protect property rights)
It boils down to property tax as a means of preventing land accumulation and tax revenue generation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism
I don’t see how that would have worked even when it was invented.
Right now you can see how the rich own all the land and have no need to use or sell it. This way they create a shortage and can charge a higher price for the land they use or sell. IMO the only way to break this up to stop charging property tax at all - because all land ownership goes back to the state. If someone wants to use land they rent it from the state. If they do not use or misuse rented land the land goes to a different renter (or to the state).
Doesn’t Singapore or some other country have a system like this, where you don’t own the land, just get long term leases
Hey there. Never heard of it, actually. Thanks, I’ll find a time to read about it.
What I find interesting in this particular libertarian initiative so far, is that it is addressing an existing systematic issue. Almost all other libertarians I come around seem to be speaking about their and everyone else’s morality and righteousness, naively thinking that once we all become moral and righteous, society would become as well.
To be fair, you haven’t heard of it because it isn’t particularly relevant. Marxism already develops beyond where Georgism stops, so anyone who is disgruntled with capitalism already has a much more influential, developed, and accurate framework to go with.
I think that is because georgism is a centrist ideology. Centrist ideology isn’t attractive, and therefore georgism isn’t popular.
But your opinion isn’t wrong either. Georgism will only fix landlord problem but it will not fix corporation problem
Exactly. Georgism could be studied as an interesting historical curiosity, but it never took off, and was a historical failure, whereas Marxism especially in the USSR and China abolished land-owning rent-seeking, and the massive economic drain that caused.
Absolutely, Marxism has teeth to it because it works in real life.
I know I’m going to get downvoted for this, but since the USSR was a historical failure and Marxists claim China isn’t actually Communist but Capitalist, can’t we say the same for Marxism? An interesting historical curiosity, but it was never actually implemented and thus can’t be said to have ever taken off.
Both Georgists and Marxists get to complain about how things would be so much better if someone would actually just do it the right way for once. I say this as a left leaning Georgist Libertarian, to my heart in the right place Marxist cousins.
Both of those claims are false.
This short video on obstacles to the China path in Latin America gets into exactly what we’re talking about, the abolition of the rent-seeking parasitic sector of the economy that the Chinese revolution abolished.
The USSR was a historic success. The dissolution of the USSR is one large failure, but doesn’t negate the century of success after success in proving socialism works, siding with national liberation movements, and advancing the needs of the working class. The USSR worked, economically, its dissolution was more of a political failure than one pointing to Marxism not being able to work.
The PRC is socialist, those who say it’s capitalist typically conflate markets for capitalism, when the process of sublimating private property is a gradual one once the large firms and key industries are siezed. Both the USSR and PRC are examples of socialism working.
Marxism was implemented, and still is. Rather, Marxism-Leninism is a tool for analysis and revolution, to bring about socialism, and is has many historical successes, and continues to succeed today. Marxism-Leninism is the guiding ideology of the largest economy in the world by purchasing power parity.
So no, you can’t really say the same of Marxism as you can of Georgism. Marxism works, still works, and will continue to work. Georgism was a curiosity for a while and fades while Marxism-Leninism became the defining ideology of the 20th century, and will continue to prove even more relevant thanks to the rise of the PRC over the US.
The vast and rapid modernization and industrialization of Russia at the start was a success, but my opinion is that Marxist-Leninism stopped in the USSR when Stalin seized the country and turned it into a crony dictatorship. I don’t believe that lasted long enough to be truly called a success, as it immediately fell to the authoritarianism it overthrew from the monarchy.
If you don’t think that Stalinism was the death of Marxist-Leninism in the USSR then the bread lines, famines, forced labor and relocation, imperial expansionism, etc. as broadly reported by those that lived there and lived through it are a product of socialism. I also believe that would count as failures of socialism and not proof of success.
I agree with you that the PRC is still nominally socialist, but believe they also went Stalinist instead of Marxist-Leninist. I would call them Stalinist Communist rather than socialist. I also do not think the juice was worth the squeeze with the number of dead in the revolution and aftermath, but there is no telling what an alternative would have looked like so that is just, like, my opinion man. I personally don’t consider China as a socialist success story, but instead another warning example for how easily Communism can be corrupted/captured from within.
I totally give you that Marxist-Leninism was the defining ideology of the 20th century, but I’d call it the fuse that lead to “Communism” the failed authoritarian ideology. Like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand is to WWI. That is a hell of a lot more than Georgism ever got, to be sure, but would still say there has never been a successful Marxist country because they never remain Marxist for long.
Stalin did not “sieze the country and turn it into a crony dictatorship.” You can read works like Soviet Democracy, This Soviet World, and Is The Red Flag Flying? The Political Economy of the Soviet Union. The Soviets had a robust system of democracy. It didn’t “fall into authoritarianism,” it entered into a state of siege in all sides from capitalist invaders and as such had to defend itself. You should really read about the soviet government structure and democracy.
As for your lightning round:
Bread Lines - it’s a good thing to feed people in times of crisis. The US did it too, and that was a good thing.
Famine - famine was common in Russia before collectivization, which ended famine in the USSR.
Forced labor and relocation - this part is an issue, but it isn’t intrinsic to Marxism or socialism, and was phased out over time.
Imperial expansionism - the USSR was not imperialist. It did expand, but expanding itself is not a bad thing, especially when the majority of people who lived in the Soviet Union said they were better off then.
“Stalinism” isn’t an ideology. Stalin had his own policies during his time as the leader of the Soviet Union, especially Socialism in One Country as opposed to Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution, but Stalin was a Marxist-Leninist. Marxism-Leninism was synthesized by him. There was no betrayal of Marxism-Leninism until the Khruschev era, where reforms began to work against the centralized socialist system, leading to the utter disasters of the later Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras and the dissolution.
The PRC is Marxist-Leninist. There’s no such thing as “Stalinism,” to begin with, but you can’t use Stalinist to describe the PRC anyways because there’s no Stalin, so you can’t even use it to describe Stalin’s specific economic policies. Either way, over 90% of Chinese citizens approve of their government. The revolution saved countless lives and doubled life expectancies, same as in Russia.
I really don’t know what you think Marxism-Leninism is. If you want, I have an introductory reading list you can check out. It also isn’t just the guiding ideology of the USSR and PRC, but other countries like Vietnam, Cuba, and more, with similar success stories.
That’s like saying that some culture doesn’t require my attention because the European one is superior
No, it isn’t. What are you talking about?
You’ve dismissed the other person’s political views on the premise of Marxism including the Georgism. There are reasons why this person is not aligned with other Marxists’ takes and I would like to know them. You just view yourself superior to them
Georgism is both reformist, so it requires asking the ruling class to willingly kneecap their profits, and only covers rent, really, meaning it ignores exploitation, production, imperialism, overproduction, and crisis. Marxism answers those, and is revolutionary, it’s more relevant because it works and is more complete.
I’m missing your point. Why then would a person have Georistic rather than Marxist political views?
Most people wouldn’t. Georgism’s appeal lies soley in that it’s closee to the current system, and would be a decent improvement if it was possible. That’s it. Marxism is both more practical and more complete.
That’s like saying “I’m racist”