The Geo-Distributist Path To Egality

Simple Reform to the Tax and Welfare System Could Achieve Most of the Goals of Communism and Socialism Without the Planning Problems

When I use the term geo-distributism, I am referring specifically to a form of geo-libertarianism that seeks to use the revenue from a land value tax in order to fund a social dividend or universal basic income. The idea would be to collect a land value tax and divide the revenue up evenly amongst the citizens as a dividend. Land is not produced by the labor of men and the rights to land naturally belong to all, so a man who monopolizes any piece of land should have to monetarily compensate the people whom he deprives of their natural right to access said land. Such an approach would virtually eliminate poverty.

Most of the goals of socialism and communism could be achieved through the mechanism of geo-distributism without the need for complicated hierarchies, bureaucracy, or central planning of any sort. You don’t need to have the State or the workers take over direct control of the means of production. When you start doing that, then you run into the problems of how should the company be managed? and how do we go about planning in order to use resources efficiently? It’s been thoroughly demonstrated the pricing mechanism, though far from perfect, does far better at directing resources to the most optimal places than central planners do. The inefficiencies of markets tend to be amplified by attempts to increase central planning, so a move towards socialism doesn’t really address that problem. However, the biggest problem with markets is the tendency towards increasing inequality. While communism and socialism do address this problem, they do so only at the expense of efficiency and often at the expense of overall welfare.

Rather than attempting to centrally plan industry or abolish money, it would be much easier to just create a pre-distribution mechanism that ensures that wealth is constantly being spread out in an egalitarian manner. Rather than allowing the economic rent from land-ownership accrue to the wealthy land-owners, we ought to collect that rent because the land rightfully belongs to the community and distribute it evenly amongst the members of the community. Doing this through the mechanism of a land value tax wherein the revenue is tied to a social dividend (LVT+UBI) would essentially eliminate poverty overnight and require zero central planning.