Green Georgism: Pro-CO2 Environmentalism
radical redirection.
WARNING: this is one of those speculative and experimental articles where I’m spit-balling and thinking out loud. If you don’t like that, skip this one.
Georgism is the idea that the only tax should be a tax on undeveloped land. The advantages are two-fold: first of all, sales taxes, income tax, and other property taxes would be removed, which would dramatically increase consumption. Second of all, every plot of empty land in America (parking lots, empty fields, desert) would immediately drop in value, leading to a mass sell-off of this land to entrepreneurs (solar panel farmers, for example).
Georgism was eventually defeated by the conservationist movement. Conservationists wanted to preserve wild spaces; Georgists wanted to turn them into farms and factories. The movements were opposed, and the victory of the conservationists means that we don’t hear about Georgism anymore.
