My least favorite taxes right now are those that apply based on location.
In theory, my tax return requires about 4 extra states and a few cities, and a bunch of state registrations, and my payroll provider doesn't support the operations; so the net result is a Helleresque fever dream.
I love Ted Chiang and that story is a banger. The movies like Limitless, Lucy or Phenomenon don't really take the concept to its conclusions. Limitless posits day trading, or politics, as the highest goal. Lucy goes post human in a silly, fantasy way. Phenomenon was pretty cool except for the telekinesis. But Understand sort of hits all the bases and I really like the thesis that there is an irreducible, existential struggle between Utilitarianism and Aesthetics. And of course, the realization that the protag is actually the bad guy. Not a huge fan of the idea of "programming" another person with engrams and random stuff in the environment, to like, die, but it's more plausible than telekinesis!
One bit of historical fuzziness I'd hope someone could clear up:
How do the Georgist Progressives tie into 1910's progressivism tie into modern progressivism?
I recall a bunch of Midwestern georgist mayors were called progressives at the turn of the century, but I don't recall anything I've read on the progressive era explicitly noting any georgist influences.
Basically, the Georgists weren’t actually part of the 1910’s progressive movement, they were more aligned with the broader liberal movement.
Chris England makes the case that the Georgists were actually kind of rivals with the turn of the century progressives who were all about elite expertise and top down, often authoritarian central planning steeped in eugenics and malthusianism.
The Georgists on the other hand were more for bottom up reform and what we would now call classical liberalism; they distrusted expert central planners and rejected malthusianism.
Re midwestern mayors — Tom Johnson was a key Georgist reformer, known as “the best mayor of the best run city in America” (Cleveland). A former streetcar monopolist, he was won over by Henry George to work against his own former business interest and went on to fight the streetcar monopolies and fight for municipal ownership of public transit and utilities.
As for the connection to modern movements —
Certain strains of modern progressivism (though not all) have carried on the Malthusian and central planning ethos — especially “degrowth” advocates. Georgists old and modern oppose this mindset.
The libertarian movement was founded by, among others, Alfred J Nock, who was a devoted Georgist. The modern libertarian movement can be opposed to or quite friendly to Georgism, depending on various things.
I'd say that my beliefs most closely align with geolibertarianism, though I would say in most cases a self-described libertarian in this day in age would generally find geoism antithetical. To me it's the only reasonable compromise for private land ownership, which is inherently unethical on top of the land value tax being the most ethical form of taxation.
Individuals will make poor decisions about what to do with land all the time, but I find that preferable to the government making those decisions about all land all the time, which is why a lot of progressive movements don't resonate with me. Private land ownership is useful and geoism aims to reconcile the ethical concerns and the more pragmatic ones, like disallowing owners from sitting on their property and doing absolutely nothing with it.
Could one look at the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks through a similar lens as you do with the Georgists vs the 1910s Progressives? The Mensheviks being more bottom-up (and willing to go slower if needed) and the Bolsheviks being top-down (in order to move faster) but both with the end goal of moving forward with Socialism?
I would not describe Georgism as a socialist movement. Although accomplishing the goals of Georgism would be a step towards socialism, it isn't really aiming to accomplish the same thing. Georgism addresses an issue with land ownership but attempts to reconcile it in a way that is compatible with liberalism. Land owners can still make choices about what they do with their land but pressure is placed on them by the state when it's not being utilized.
Socialism, on the other hand, would not allow for the land owner to exist at all, and the use of the land would be determined collectively by the state.
