Does Georgism Work? Five Years Later

Lars Doucet revisits his earlier defense of Georgism - Henry George’s claim that economic progress raises land rents and thus deepens inequality - and summarizes the policy at stake: a land value tax (LVT) that captures the unimproved rental value of land (often implemented as a property tax with a universal building exemption). He restates the single-tax idea (LVT as the primary tax), notes broad economist sympathy for the principle, and recalls his prior review and follow-up series that turned into outreach materials and a short book arguing that land capture explains why services and housing get unaffordable even as productivity rises.

Since then LVT has moved from blog theory to real politics: 2026 saw Virginia and Kentucky pass enablement laws for split-rate taxes, Baden-Württemberg adopt a modest LVT, and LVT-friendly national leaders win power in the UK and South Korea. Doucet reports a strategic shift: move from online persuasion to on-the-ground implementation - doing policymakers’ homework, building tools (CivicMapper visualizer, LVTShift Python library), modeling winners and losers, and publishing a playbook. Empirical work highlights concentrated downtown land value and wasted uses like surface parking; models usually show vacant lots and parking as losers under revenue-neutral shifts while median single-family homeowners can be net winners. Early wins include a Louisville campaign that used the playbook to pass enabling legislation.