Political Barriers

insights

Despite LVT's high theoretical appeal, administrative and political realities have generally outweighed and discouraged setting one up in practice. Traditional policies to control urban sprawl can rub against commitments to private property rights. Land value taxation offers an alternative that's amenable to conservatives and progressive alike. The unpopularity of land value taxation in the US flows from two alleged legal obstacles: "uniformity clauses", which require that all taxation be applied evenly within a jurisdiction, and "Dillon's Rule", which implies that municipal corporations owe their origins to, and derive their powers and rights wholly from, the legislature. Americans are less polarized on economic democracy (codetermination, employee stock ownership programs, and management elections) than unionization. Codetermination enjoys majority support in every state *and* among Trump voters in all but 4 states. There is little evidence of partisan polarization over economic democracy.

sources

Jain Family Institute Position on Guaranteed Income Public Split on Basic Income for Workers Replaced by Robots Conservatives Should Ensure Workers a Seat at the Table What Do Americans Want From (Private) Government? The New Progressive Agenda Measuring the Effects of a Land Value Tax on Land Development

authors

RJ Reinhart Oren Cass Soumyajit Mazumder Alan Yan Roland K. Roberts Seung Gyu Kim Seong-Hoon Cho Mark Haveman

reports

Basic Income Codetermination Land Value Tax