What is Land? This causes lots of misunderstand and fertile
ground for KLNs.
Traditionally LVTers speak about land being that minus
buildings and other physical improvements. “A-haa!”, say the faux-libertarians, “what
about search and discovery? If you tax unimproved land you’ll tax those too. Got
you and Geogism is therefore rubbish!”
To which we say no, Land in economics means everything that
is not produced by human effort which search and discovery is. True but is this
the only definition?
Consider, I lose an unmarked wallet stuffed with cash. To
whom does its value now belong? Finders keepers losers weepers?
The trouble with this definition
of property rights is one of fairness, thus of efficiency. Say word got out that a lost wallet of
unknown origin is somewhere under the sand on a beach. Loads of people are going to use more
energy collectively in a disorganised free for all, than one person searching
methodically.
So, it would be best for everyone to pay one person for
their time (and perhaps expertise) in searching for it and then divvy up the wallets
value afterwards. Or even better hold an
auction and the highest bidder gets the search rights, the proceeds of which
are divvied up.
Point is that the ownerless wallet, for fairness and efficiency purposes
should be considered common property i.e Land.
Any Capital that no longer has established property rights,
like decaying rubbish can be considered Land. And that like lost wallets, they certainly
are making more of.
So perhaps a clearer definition of Land is, all without provenance.
Debate Magazine
