Do you really think I don't understand what rent means? I pay rent every month, I better go figure out what it is I'm actually paying...
I'm not proposing we do away with rent as a concept. In the current situation, when you pay rent, you're really paying two rents combined.
The first rent corresponds to renting the land the building is on. This rent is why an equivalent apartment has a higher rent in SF than it does in Detroit or Houston.
The second rent corresponds to renting the building/unit itself. This rent is why a 2 bedroom apartment has a higher rent than a 1 bedroom apartment.
Now, the first rent is entirely uncorrelated with the value the landlord provides. It is essentially paid due to the landlord owning a monopoly on scarce good, which is only valuable due the community and government putting the effort to make the area valuable. Someone who owns land in downtown NYC didn't make it valuable, it became valuable because the government built the infrastructure to make the city livable, and the other residents made the city into a place where people want to live. Therefore, it's only fair that this rent goes to the commons rather than the landowner, where it can then be used to fund the government, rather than through other taxes.
What I propose is a land value tax equal to this land rent, so it is returned to the commons. The owner is still free to keep the rent from the building. This ideology is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism, and is pretty well supported from both an economic and fairness perspective.
I'm not proposing we do away with rent as a concept. In the current situation, when you pay rent, you're really paying two rents combined.
The first rent corresponds to renting the land the building is on. This rent is why an equivalent apartment has a higher rent in SF than it does in Detroit or Houston.
The second rent corresponds to renting the building/unit itself. This rent is why a 2 bedroom apartment has a higher rent than a 1 bedroom apartment.
Now, the first rent is entirely uncorrelated with the value the landlord provides. It is essentially paid due to the landlord owning a monopoly on scarce good, which is only valuable due the community and government putting the effort to make the area valuable. Someone who owns land in downtown NYC didn't make it valuable, it became valuable because the government built the infrastructure to make the city livable, and the other residents made the city into a place where people want to live. Therefore, it's only fair that this rent goes to the commons rather than the landowner, where it can then be used to fund the government, rather than through other taxes.
What I propose is a land value tax equal to this land rent, so it is returned to the commons. The owner is still free to keep the rent from the building. This ideology is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism, and is pretty well supported from both an economic and fairness perspective.