Georgism is not about scarcity, it's about economic land: inputs to production which are fixed in quantity, and that you can't make more of. This is a very different characteristic than scarcity, because many scarce things can be increased, and should be if they are needed.

Taxing specialized labor goes against that spirit, because specialized labor can be created. And in fact taxing the labor would result in less of it being there, the exact opposite of the optimal result.

Yes, the right generalization of Georgism is the taxation of economic rent in its various forms - something which George himself opposed.

> something which George himself opposed.

Do you have a source on this?

> economic rent

What's the definition of this term?

Basically money you make by owning some legal right rather than by doing something productive

> Georgism is not about scarcity, it's about economic land: inputs to production which are fixed in quantity, and that you can't make more of.

I think people get tripped up on this specifically because a growing demand for something with fixed/inelastic supply will naturally tend to cause that thing to become scarce given enough time, and it's that scarcity as applied to land that's making Georgism look more and more like a good idea.

Doesn’t the veterinarian own their own skills, after having spent decades in school to learn them (and perhaps being saddled with student loans to do so?)

What if they just moved? Or should we have US-style global taxes following them around even then?

> Many people would want a system which penalizes businesses for buying up e.g. all the veterinarians in a city and charging monopoly prices.

As powerful as taxes are to create change, you don't need to use them to solve every problem out there.

Monopoly busting doesn't need to be solved by the tax system, right? Isn't that a separate issue?

Although, maintaining a monopoly by owning land becomes more difficult with a LVT. It theoretically becomes easier for a new vet to find a place and setup shop in the city, and then the Monopoly is busted.

Randall Wray frames this as “tax bads not goods”. In other words: don’t tax payroll, we want companies to hire. Don’t tax labour: we want people to work. Don’t tax company profits: we want profitable companies. DO tax pollution. DO tax interest income: we don’t want people to get money for doing nothing. DO tax resource usage. If your houses are too big tax house volume. If your land is being banked tax vacancy and so on.

Interest income is not taxed under Georgism btw, except for income on land speculation.

If you buy company x, restructure the business, start turning a profit, then sell the company -> that income (capital gains under current system) is untaxed in Georgism

If you buy an empty lot, wait 10 years to sell it to someone at a higher price, then all that profit is taxed (before it is realized too).