3min chapter

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Lars Doucet - Progress, Poverty, Georgism, & Why Rent is Too Damn High

Dwarkesh Podcast

CHAPTER

Introduction

Lars Dusse wrote a book based on the philosophy of 19th century American economist Henry George from Once We Get Georgia-ism. His thesis is kind of the title of his book, That Land is a Big Deal. He says land has this hidden role in the economy that is really underrated. And if we can find a way to share the earth, then we can solve the paradox: Why does poverty advance even when progress advances?

00:00
Speaker 1
Over the last century, we've had this huge conflict. All the oxygen's been sucked up by capitalism and socialism duking it out. We have this assumption that you either have to be pro-worker or pro-business, that you can't be both. I have noticed a lot of crypto people get into Georgia some, not the least of which is Vitalik Buter and you endorse my book. If you earn $100,000 in San Francisco as a family of four, you are below the poverty line. Let's start with just taxing the things nobody has made and that people are gatekeeping access to. Let's tax essentially monopolies and rent seeking. The income tax needs to do this full anal probe on everyone in the country and then audits the poor at a higher rate than the rich.
Speaker 2
And it's just this horrible burden we have. Okay, today I have the pleasure of speaking with Lars Dusse who developed the highly acclaimed Defender's Quest game and Part 2 is coming out next year, but now he's working on a new startup. But the reason we're talking is that he wrote a review of Henry George's progress and poverty that won Scott Alexander's book review contest. And now it has been turned into, and expanded into this book, Land is a big deal. So Lars, welcome to the podcast. Great to be here, Dworkesh. Okay, so let's just get into it. What is Georgia-ism?
Speaker 1
Okay, so the book is based off of the philosophy of a 19th century American economist by the name of Henry George from Once We Get Georgia-ism. And basically, George's thesis is kind of the title of my book, That Land is a Big Deal. George-ism is often reduced to its main policy prescription that we should have a land value tax, which is a tax on the unimproved value of land, but not a tax on any buildings or infrastructure on top of the land, anything humans add. But the basic insight of it is that it's kind of reflected in the aphorisms you hear from real estate agents. When they say things like the three laws of real estate are location, location, location, and by land it's the one thing they're not making anymore of. It's basically this insight that land has this hidden role in the economy that is really underrated. But if you look at history through the right lens, control over land is the oldest struggle of human history. It goes beyond human history. Animals have been fighting over land forever. That's what they're fighting over in Ukraine and Russia right now, right? And basically the fundamental insight of George-ism is that over the last century we've had this huge conflict, all the oxygen's been sucked up by capitalism and socialism duking it out. We have this assumption that you either have to be pro-worker or pro-business, that you can't be both. And George-ism is genuinely pro-worker and pro-business. But what it's against is land speculation. And if we can find a way to share the earth, then we can solve the paradox that is the title of George's book, Progress in Poverty. Why does poverty advance even when progress advances? Why do we have all this industrialized technology and new methods and, you know, in George's time it was industrial technology and our time, it's computers and everything else? We have all this good stuff. We can make more than we've ever made before. There's enough wealth for everybody. And yet we still have inequality. Where does it come from? And George answers that question in his book and I, you know, expand on it in mine.
Speaker 2
Yep, yep.

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