I care about the question of land value as city land vs. agricultural land because if there is a difference, that implies that there are two significantly different variants of Georgism, which would tax city land differently and, at least in some situations, have different consequences w.r.t. incentives.
I care about the question of land value as city land vs. agricultural land because if there is a difference, that implies that there are two significantly different variants of Georgism, which would tax city land differently and, at least in some situations, have different consequences w.r.t. incentives.
One of the selling points of Georgism, more specifically the version where, as much as possible, the tax doesn't depend on human actions, it's non-distortionary, unlike most other taxes. If the tax on any given land doesn't depend on what people do, then it can't disincentivize otherwise useful human activity. But this is less clear if the tax does depend on human actions (such building nearby city infrastructure, which drives up the market value of the land).
I care about the question of land value as city land vs. agricultural land because if there is a difference, that implies that there are two significantly different variants of Georgism, which would tax city land differently and, at least in some situations, have different consequences w.r.t. incentives.
One of the selling points of Georgism, more specifically the version where, as much as possible, the tax doesn't depend on human actions, it's non-distortionary, unlike most other taxes. If the tax on any given land doesn't depend on what people do, then it can't disincentivize otherwise useful human activity. But this is less clear if the tax does depend on human actions (such building nearby city infrastructure, which drives up the market value of the land).