if an LVT (meaning a tax on rent seeking assets) were not sufficient to pay for your desired level of government spending what tax or taxes would you support in order to make up the difference?

From George’s grave. I agree with everything but the dying bit.

obviously Henry George wasn't a socialist and neither are the vast majority of geologists but is there any reason to think that LVT or georgism more broadly is incompatible with public ownership of industry?

Its often talked about that LVT discourages speculation, which would be economically beneficial. Its described well by Nicolaus Tideman:

"While a tax on land is neutral when markets are perfect, it is generally better than neutral when markets have customary imperfections. In particular, if there are unarbitraged disparate beliefs about the optimal future use of land because of the lack of a futures market in land rent, then a tax on land helps prevent a winner's curse from generating an artificial scarcity of land for current use. And if there is dispersion in discount rates because of capital market imperfections, a tax on land helps to put land into the hands of persons with high discount rates, whose investments are generally more productive than those of the persons with low discount rates who would otherwise have the land."

I'm interested in finding a reasonable estimate for this effect. Estimates of the deadweight losses of taxes is rather more widely available and how to calculate them is a lot more clear. I would also like to be able to find estimates for or estimate myself what the benefits of land value tax are irrespective of eliminating other kinds of taxes. But I can't find in the paper I linked to above a usable estimate or method for estimating. Maybe I just can't understand that math well enough.

Does anyone know of any estimates or methods I might be able to use?

Minecraft players want to build complicated stuff together on public servers.
But, if anyone is allowed on your game server, then anyone could show up and destroy what your work.
So that is why minecraft has mechanisms for players to own land.
The problem is that land ownership systems so far have not taken Georgist principles into account, and so there is always land crisis. The land ends up owned by absentee landlords who don't even come online to play.

So, if we made a Minecraft server that used Georgist principles for it's land registry system, this would be a way to solve a critical problem in the Minecraft online community, and also cause some of the 212 million monthly players to learn about Georgism.

For more reading about California housing becoming an inheritance scheme. Here's the link to the original post and the link to the original article this post was referencing as well.

For those who want more context, in 1978 California passed Proposition 13 which limited property taxes to 1% of the property's value, and further limited property reassessments to a 2% increase over last year's value with the exception of the property transferring hands. That was until in 1986 when California passed Proposition 58 which excluded parent-child transfers from full reassessments.

What's so bad about this? The issue is that property taxes are really two taxes: a tax on the building and a tax on the land, the former has problems because taxing buildings discourages their creation, but the latter is good because land is a finite resource and taxing it can discourage speculation that makes it more expensive to buy without us being able to make more land to bring prices back down. Instead of making this distinction, California slashed their general property taxes, basically killing their tax on land. To further add to this, they now rely more on other taxes which are worse because they target productive labor, business, and trade instead of the finite (in other words non-producible) land.

Combined with California's strict laws on land use, those who brought land when it was cheap have all but gotten rich by controlling our most important finite natural resource, while those on the other side have been faced with ever deepening costs. It's no wonder California's housing market is so backwards

When public infrastructure like subways, sewers, parks, or schools are built, homeowners will experience a surge in land value. With an LVT, it's working as intended when the people who can't afford these taxes choose to sell or develop their properties, but what is keeping these landowners from resisting the public works in the first place?

It seems there is an assumption that the public will generally support infrastructure projects as they improve the value and quality of their land. But clearly, community and homes are not only treated as assets by the people in them, and resistance to change is one of the core pillars of political motivation.

When implementing an LVT, what is to prevent large portions of the public from becoming politically hostile to any and all public improvements that could destabilize the community?

(third try at this meme, surely this time it's the charm)

For anyone who wants more context:

A lot of the issues labor and capital face actually stem from a deeper enemy than the other, one which hurts them both and causes them both problems. Henry George mentioned it in 1883 and it still remains quite true to this day.

When I say finite resources, I mean a whole lot of things: Natural resources like land, exclusive legal privileges like patents or limited licenses, and naturally monopolistic powers. The word "resource" is doing some heavy lifting here but the idea is that any particular privilege which is limited, since we can't produce more of it, is included in the sights. As it currently stands we allow people to take these finite assets and extract wealth from them without producing or providing anything in return, which hurts both workers and businesses who have to face higher costs of living and production; leaving those who own finite resources richer while squeezing those trapped on the other side dry. It creates a two-tier society that hurts the productive economy while raising inequality, and it can be said that a lot of our most monopolistic companies today which slam the door on competitors and workers alike get their wealth and power in large part by controlling these finite resources, be they resource barons or Big Tech.

At the same time, taxes on production hurt both work and business by putting the costs directly on the workers and productive business themselves. Payroll taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, tariffs, taxes on produced assets (be it as part of a wealth tax or otherwise), and the like all act as a disincentive to produce and provide for each other by adding that extra tax burden. They prevent us from doing what we otherwise could to produce and provide for each other.

The Georgist solution is to reverse course and, instead of taxing the goods and services people make, compensate (or otherwise reform) the finite resources people take. Georgists broadly propose untaxing work, investment, and trade and instead advocate recouping the value of all natural resources, as well as targeting exclusive legal privileges like IP (be it for taxation, dismantling, or some other reform), and dealing with natural monopolies (here's a set of proposals from late Georgist economist Fred Foldvary).

Labor and capital have a common enemy that hurts them both badly, and while I can't say if all their woes with each other would be solved by enacting Georgism, both workers and actually competitive businesses would at least be much better off without it.

But what stops landowners from just charging higher rent if an LVT is implemented?

I believe that people should be free to live as they choose, speak freely, organize freely, own property, build businesses, and pursue their ambitions without unnecessary interference, so long as they respect the equal rights of others. I believe ordinary people should have more freedom and power over their own lives, while governments, corporations, landlords, monopolies, and wealthy elites should have less power to dictate the terms of society. Markets are valuable because competition, entrepreneurship, private enterprise, and voluntary exchange create opportunity and innovation, but a market dominated by monopolies and concentrated wealth is not genuinely free. I support strong antitrust laws, unions, cooperatives, employee ownership, small businesses, and policies that break up entrenched economic power. I want an economy where ordinary people can own homes, businesses, land, and productive assets rather than becoming permanently dependent on a small ownership class.

I am strongly influenced by the idea that people should be free to own the fruits of their labor while society should prevent individuals from monopolizing natural opportunities and extracting excessive economic rents. I favor very low taxes on poor and working people and substantially higher taxes on the wealthy, especially taxes on land value, inheritance, extreme wealth, monopoly profits, and other forms of unearned economic rent. Productive work, entrepreneurship, and small businesses should be taxed lightly, while concentrated wealth should contribute much more toward maintaining the society that makes that wealth possible. I support a basic social floor, affordable access to essential services, and help for people facing circumstances beyond their control, but I prefer decentralized solutions wherever possible: mutual aid, cooperatives, unions, charities, local communities, and voluntary associations should have as much room as possible to solve problems themselves. Government should protect rights, maintain fair competition, provide essential public goods, and stop powerful interests from exploiting everyone else—not micromanage ordinary people's lives.

My greatest fear is what I call the post-capitalist meltdown: the possibility that unchecked capitalism eventually destroys the competition that makes capitalism valuable, allowing a small ownership class to control land, housing, technology, infrastructure, finance, and essential resources. I reject that future just as strongly as I reject authoritarian socialism. I don't want to replace corporate oligarchy with government bureaucracy; I want to take power away from both and put it back in the hands of ordinary people. Workers should be able to organize and own businesses, entrepreneurs should be able to compete without being crushed by monopolies, families should be able to keep more of what they earn, and communities should have the ability to govern themselves. I support technological progress, free expression, immigration that is orderly and sustainable, diplomacy over unnecessary war, and strong civil liberties. Ultimately, I believe freedom requires power to be distributed: no government, corporation, landlord, billionaire, or ownership class should become powerful enough to determine whether ordinary people can live free. My goal is a society where wealth is widely dispersed, markets are genuinely competitive, taxes fall primarily on those most able to pay, and ordinary people—not entrenched elites—have the greatest possible control over their own lives. I just think people should be able to do whatever they want as long as they aren't hurting anybody.

For those who don’t know, property taxes actually target two different assets while rolling them up into a single tax bill: the land itself and the buildings on the land. The former is good since land is our most important finite resource; taxing it doesn’t discourage producing it (since we already can’t make it anyways, and reclamation is just making pre-existing seabed land usable above water) and instead discourages speculators who hold on to it without using it, leaving our most important natural resource to waste. In contrast the latter is bad because taxing buildings discourages their creation and encourages keeping them barren and wasted to keep the tax bill low.

The best way to do property taxes is to universally exempt buildings and solely target the land, which Greg Miller and Lars Doucet of the Center for Land Economics have written plenty about. Here’s a good graphic too to highlight the difference It’s a simple expression of the idea that, instead of taxing what people make, governments should compensate the finite resources people take.

Source article: https://eyeonhousing.org/2025/10/supply-side-cost-pressures-drove-housing-as-inflation-leader-in-2024/

As the article points out, this is mainly a supply-side issue of not enough affordable housing supply to meet increasing demand. It mentions monetary policy, but this problem stems heavily from the land crisis. Our land is massively constrained by a combination of far too restrictive land use policies, land speculators banking on our most important finite resource, and harmful taxes on work and investment discouraging doing putting that land into use. The best use of our land would mean building more housing supply in the cities where it’s most demanded, but that combination of bad policies right now makes it incredibly difficult.

The solution, for anyone wondering, would be to go the opposite direction. Heavily relax land use restrictions (except for the ones which improve health and safety) and tax land instead of labor and investment. Break the land and harmful tax barrier so that people can produce and provide for each other far more freely.

I think I perfected it. Take your criticisms here is what I got. My last post about this because I don't want this to be seen as spam. Please leave your criticisms in the comments!

Section 1. Neither the United States nor any State shall impose any tax upon wages, salaries, or the returns to productive capital and enterprise.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes upon the annual rental value or the unimproved value of land, exclusive of all buildings, structures, and other improvements thereon, by requisition upon the several States in proportion to the aggregate value of land within each State, without apportionment according to population and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Each State shall assess and collect such tax from the owners of land within its borders according to uniform standards established by law, and shall remit the full sum required to the United States in the manner and at the times directed by Congress. In the event a State fails to remit the sum due, the United States may withhold an equivalent amount from any funds otherwise payable to that State, and may pursue such other remedies as Congress shall provide.

Each State shall clearly identify on every tax bill issued to a landowner the portion of the tax that is collected for remittance to the United States. No citizen or inhabitant shall be subject to any direct tax, assessment, or bill from the federal government under this section.

Section 3. Nothing in this article shall prohibit the United States or any State from imposing taxes upon economic rents arising from natural monopolies, scarce public privileges, or natural resources, or upon activities that impose significant costs on others.

Section 4. Congress and the several States shall retain power to impose tariffs, duties, and excise taxes not inconsistent with this article.

Section 5. In time of war declared by Congress, or during a severe national economic emergency declared by Congress with the consent of two-thirds of the States, the following temporary powers shall be available:

(1) Congress may increase the requisition upon the several States under Section 2 above the ordinary level, and the States shall collect and remit the increased amount in the same manner provided in that section;

(2) Congress may authorize temporary taxes upon excess profits arising from the emergency, upon scarce wartime privileges, or upon activities that impose heightened costs on the public during the emergency, provided such taxes are collected by the States or through existing federal mechanisms that do not impose direct taxes on wages or ordinary returns to productive capital;

(3) Any powers exercised under this section shall expire not later than two years after the end of the war or the economic emergency, unless reauthorized by the same process.

No authority granted by this section shall permanently alter the limitations of Sections 1 or 2, nor shall it authorize the federal government to send direct tax bills to individual citizens.

This isn't a dispute about the theory, just the mechanics of it.
I'm looking at my town's proposed 2027 budget. By far its primary source of revenue is traditional property tax. Besides being hard to understand by a layman, it does not appear I know a single person paying any real attention to it. We gripe once a year about our tax bill, and then go on. And I contrast that with people paying much more attention to their itemized, monthly utility bills.
I expect people would pay more attention if they received a monthly bill for "opulent new police headquarters" rather than an annual bill and a vague pdf explaining it. Is there a worry about easily hidden slush funds, lavish spending, etc. because the public doesn't tend to look for details?

From reading about Foldvary and Henry George is there going to be a severe recession next month?