I disagree. I listened to an hour long, glowing summary of it and read about it on Wikipedia. It is just not convincing to me. The only thing cartoonish is how hard people praise it, considering we already have property taxes much like George wanted, which are often quite high and don't add to the economy. Property taxes like that are very close to communism, especially if you take it to an extreme. The higher the taxes, the less you actually own anything.
I have also had the displeasure of arguing with someone who thinks Henry George had the right idea. The dude was literally defending the communist Chinese "property" model which is just a 70 year lease from the government.
Calling my view extreme is like saying that an atheist is religious. Just because I don't accept this idea and all the ensuing conclusions, does not make my views extreme or unreasonable, much less "cartoonish"...
Sorry, I didn’t mean cartoonish in the sense of extreme (quite the opposite), I meant it in the sense of not understanding what you’re talking about.
You’ve stuffed an impressive number of misunderstandings into these few comments, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to help you unwind them except to say you should read the book.
Well, perhaps the people glorifying this book are the ones who have misunderstood it. They certainly did not convey anything about it to me besides what I have said and criticized here. I don't feel the need to read it one way or another. If the main idea is simply that property tax can be good, I already think that. If the main idea is that property tax is likely to fix poverty and inequality (as I have been led to believe), nothing in it can possibly convince me of that. On a similar note, I don't think that reading a Bible will make me doubt the theory of evolution, or the laws of physics. And you can't convince me that the Bible is not contrary to those principles, because I know better than that.
That’s not the main idea. In fact it’s the opposite of the main idea. You do not understand what you’re arguing against, and it’s not a subtle misunderstanding either. You are wrong on the very core of the idea.
So, again, if I misunderstand the ideas and nature of the book, it is because fans of the book do not understand it either. I think we are disagreeing about definitions. I looked at a wiki page about Georgism and I am even more convinced that this is the case and it is being co-opted by communist/socialist influencers. Anyway, it does not matter. This whole thread is going nowhere.
No, it's because you misunderstand what you've heard and you are demonstrably impervious to doubting and therefore improving your own understanding.
The "disagreement about definitions" is the substance of the disagreement. You do not understand the terms that are being used, therefore you do not understand the argument being made.
You say up above that all taxes are just taxes, so a conversation with you about tax policy is bound to roughly a first grade level because you've chosen not to learn what words mean.
I have also had the displeasure of arguing with someone who thinks Henry George had the right idea. The dude was literally defending the communist Chinese "property" model which is just a 70 year lease from the government.
Calling my view extreme is like saying that an atheist is religious. Just because I don't accept this idea and all the ensuing conclusions, does not make my views extreme or unreasonable, much less "cartoonish"...