The so-called "geolib" position has been long refuted many years ago:
http://mises.org/rothbard/georgism.pdf
Bob/Troy's pet link article written by Dan Sullivan makes several rudimentary errors:
1. It's a farce to make a distinction between "community" and "government" when the so-called "community" has the power to tax. "Communitarianism" is a just a new-age name for "communism" when the latter went out of fashion. A plantation owner is the government of the plantation regardless what he euphemistically calls his rule.
2. Arden is a corporation just like most towns in the US are incorporated. The fact that even the only alleged working example of "one-tax" in the entire article can only collect 1/4 of what it allegedly is entitled to goes to show just how absurd it is to try to tax the entire land rent. Incidentally, 1/4 of alleged land rent is comparable to 1-2.5% property tax, assuming properties are 10x-20x rent income and land accounting for about half of property value. It should be no surprise that most towns in the country pay for all their expenses out of property tax . . . so the whole Arden experiment is a farce, and little different from most other incorporated town that collect property tax or a giant trailer park, where the incorporated landlord rents out land and provide "community" service . . . and more importantly makes rules.
3. Land can certainly be created by human effort: land filling, for example. Half of Holland wouldn't exist if not for land making. Many city land plots on the two coasts would be under water too if not for man-made land.
4. Land is not a limiting factor in modern economic growth. Agriculture has ceased to be the primary economic engine since just about Henry George's time. High cost of rent in population centers has little to do with alleged land monopoly but everything to do with people's desire to be in those locations running up against zoning laws restricting housing supply. The most recent housing bubble was an experiment in bypassing the "landlords" altogether, and guess what happened? the cost of housing did not go down but went up instead! It's the competitive supply vs. demand that set price. "Landlords" with numerous others nearby to compete against do not collect a monopolist Rent.
5. The proposed "one-tax" "land tax" however would be monopolistic Rent imposed on the rest of the economy by the bureaucratic class. It's ironic that Dan Sullivan would use the term "royal libertarian" to describe his critics. Most land titles in the US have little to do with old feudal land titles. OTOH, his proposed land taxation to the full economic value of the land would concentrate land ownership into the hands of the government thereby creating a new land-based royalty. In other words, the so-called "geolibs" are the "royal libs" . . . in the same way that "communists" are often effectively feudalists/monarchists as their policy proposals would lead to feudal dark ages with a new class of royalty on top, like in North Korea, which incidentally does have all land owned by the government
6. Georgists are dealing with mythical concepts when they talk about "land" as separate from improvement, just like their use of terms "community" / "government" / "the public." There is not a "community" / "government" / "the public" separate from concrete actions by individuals on the ground. Likewise, "land," as nice as an abstract concept, can not be separated from improvement. Most land plots were reshaped by developers before selling to the current owners (or their predecessors) along with infrastructure that was part of the sale. Government had little to do with that.
7. Where the government does have a role, one which really confuses the Georgists, is that it maintains a record of deeds and titles that make future land disputes easier to settle in court. Having that record does not mean that the government owns all the land or is entitled to collect all rent on that land . . . any more than the registrar of motor vehicles has the right to collect the entire use value of your car! or on all the iron in your car! Iron as an element is actually finite on the planet and not made by human. Your exclusive right to the iron content in your car before the car is recycled is your property right, despite the title paper playing a significant role in settling disputes should any arise. Likewise, it would be silly to talk about the value of the iron in a car as separate from the car's manufacturing before the car is ready for recycling and reduced to components. Georgists are obviously not talking about the trash/recycling value of land (say, how much a plot is worth if the entire area is wiped clean by fire or flood) but trying to have the government monopoly collect rent on land with improvements just like steel as part of a working car's value. Land value is inseparable from improvement. Henry George eventually had to draw an arbitrary line that improvements lasting longer than the life span of the improver should be deemed part of "land." In other words, a policy of discouraging long term land improvement and management.
8. Why is this topic important to renters? Because it is important to understand that "rent" would become much higher in a monopolistic land management system. The term "Rent" originally refers to monopolistic market positions. The use-fees that owners of properties collect in competition against other property owners are not monopolistic rent. The Georgist one-tax (much higher tax) on land value would actually create a monopoly Rent to be imposed on the rest of the economy. While the property owners can and do compete on their own margins of operation, they do not compete on the tax portion, which all "landlords" have to collect on behalf of their Landlord, the government. The Georgist aim to collect the entire land rent means land would have zero value, and negative value during economic down turns. That means eventual government take-over of all land ownership. Just like what a nightmare things turned out in countries where "capitalists" were cut out and the government became the only employer (i.e. the soviet system where "they pretend to pay and we pretend to work"), letting the government become the only landlord without any sub-divided and competitive land and property maintenance/management services on the ground would be disasterous to renters seeking good housing at reasonable prices. It is another competitive capitalist employer's ability and willingness to pay just a little more to hire you away that keeps your real wage up; likewise, it is another competitive landlord's offer of better housing at lower price that lets you get the bang for your buck on housing.
Without the landlord let service, buying would be the only option. Qualifications for buyers are actually higher than for renters, so in a normal market, monthly fee for renters should actually be higher than that for buyers who have the superior credit worthiness. i.e. rent should be higher than the monthly payment for buying. That is actually one of the cardinal rules for buying investment property in a normal housing market: the landlord is actually arbitrarging his/her superior credit worthiness to provide the renter a roof over the latter's head.
The availability of houses for renting at half the monthly payment of mortgage on comparable house is almost entirely the result of competition among landlords, as is the phenomenon of negative cash flow among new landlords.
That means she has owned the property since probably before 1980! That's 30+ years of successful track record on her job! Assuming the property tax rate in your town is 1.5%, her rental revenue is only about 3% of the house' value! That's before insurance, tax, repair expense and her mortgage payment (if any) What big profit are you talking about? 3% revenue - 1% insurance and repair = 2%, that's about 1.5% Return On Capital after Prop-13 protected property tax! (and would be 0.5% if there had been no Prop-13 protection) And you are complaining as if she enjoys some kind of Economic Rent?!
If you are the only applicant, then the landlord has even less market power than the tenant, as the tenant probably looks for housing at multiple different places. When I was in college, I had to sublet to my roommates in 4br apartment. When two of them moved, it was a pain the rear end to find new roommates. I spent multiple days interviewing dozens of them before picking two; they were not even my top choice, as some people that I wanted decided to live somewhere else. Two-way choice is a real bitch. LOL.
Hardly. There are far more fixing around the house than a public road. You are forgetting the house needs new roofs every 10 years or so. New water heater every 6. Plumbing leaks, electric fixes, exterior painting every 3-5 years, etc. etc.
You need to check on deliquency rate among tenants.
There are full time jobs for that, called account managers. Are they "parasites" too?
For the same reason that there are markets for stocks arleady issued, and bonds already sold by the Treasury. . . because without them who would be paying the builders and developers? Oh, home buyers you say? Then you need to pay more than double every month. Are you ready to cough up and buy? and ready to pay twice as much every month for the same roof over your head? Do you also believe any and all money that you have made from stocks should be taxed at 100? including dividends? Chances are that you bought the stocks on the secondary market not all IPO issues. Besides even if you bought IPO, you had to sell into the secondary market.
Of course there is BENEFIT! You are getting a roof over your head that is costing you half the price of what would cost you every month to buy the same house. Do you also believe hotels offer you no benefit? If it offers you no benefit, why did you sign up with your landlord at all? The fact that she is willing to charge you less than other landlords is your BENEFIT!
Like I mentioned before, my motivation is that I do not wish the Georgist nonsense drive up rent across the country. If you really believe the small time landlords have market power like liquor licenses do, what makes you think a more expensive liquor license would make the liquor cheaper?! My landlord has saved me $180k over a little over half a decade compared to if I had bought the house at the time. Unlike you, I'm rather appreciative of that service.
If your idea is to let the government collect rent, who will be managing the building then? The government? Do you really want to interview in a facility like the DMV for your next house hunting? Wait, the government already run some rental units. Go to a public housing project in Detroit or Baltimore, and see what it's like.
There is a reason why having the government take over retail housing rental is a bad idea. We have already gone through that experiment: Marxians (and Henry Ford too) thought government/monopolistic resource management would bring efficiency. The result was the exact opposite: because no one person can do everything up and down the chain of responsibilities, the monopolistic bureaucracy that would grow out of such a monopolistic integrated operation (whether it be a commune in Russia or a the River Rouge Plant in Michigan) is nowhere nearly as efficient and flexible as multiple competitors at each level.
That's why we have multiple different private firms involved in growing lettuce, transporting them, and putting them on the shelves for you to choose from. The grocery store may well be charging you 3x per head the price that they are paying (a profit margin that is far higher than what your landlord is getting) . . . but that is still far more efficient than if a government monopoly were put in place to handle all the growing and distribution . . . for the very simple reason that a monopolistic bureaucracy would become far more self-serving without competitive pressure.
Getting the most that one can get away with is human nature (including sheer laziness). For crying out loud, your landlord is getting a shitty 2-3% or less return on capital, and you are here disparaging the morality of her being landlord, obviously hoping to pay less. LOL. It is only the freedom to choose alternatives that keep both parties to a transaction in check. If a government monopoly becomes one of the two parties in a transaction, the counter-party loses that freedom to choose entirely and has to suck up shitty service at high price. If you think the rent is too high, you should be pushing for government relaxing zoning restrictions so that more landlords can compete with more units instead of advocating raising taxes that may well drive some existing landlords out and make rent more expensive.
For what it's worth, most commercial spaces are rented on "triple-net" basis; i.e. the tenant is responsible for insurance, tax and utilities, largely because commercial zoning tax rate and insurance tend to fluctuate. A high LVT that get re-assessed every year may well make residential rental market into triple-net basis as well. . . perhaps not a bad idea to have rents quoted on triple-net basis, considering just how misinformed some people are nowadays.