I don’t really agree with the characterization of recent history as people realizing that “liberalism isn’t working”, and to the degree that I would advocate for any specific policy change, I support a “radical incrementalist” approach. e.g. maybe the endpoint of the ideal concept of property rights is pretty far from wherever we are right now, but to get there we should start with small, incremental changes that respect existing rights and norms as much as possible.
So for example, I think Georgism is a good idea in general, but not a panacea, and a radical and sudden implementation would be illiberal for some of the reasons articulated by @Matthew Barnetthere.
I think a more realistic way to phase in Georgism that respects liberal principles would mainly take the form of more efficient property tax regimes—instead of complex rules and constant fights over property tax assessment valuations, there would be hopefully slightly less complex fights over land valuations, with phase-ins that keep the overall tax burden roughly the same. Some property owners with relatively low-value property on higher value land (e.g. an old / low density building in Manhattan) would eventually pay more on the margin, while others with relatively high-value property on lower value land (e.g. a newer / high density building in the exurbs) would pay a bit less. Lots of people in the middle of the property-vs-land value spectrum would pay about the same. But this doesn’t really get at the core philosophical objections you or others might have with current norms around the concept of property ownership in general.
It’s not so much philosophy as game theory. When one’s access to existing is being salami sliced away by incrementally slightly abusing rules, incremental change needs to be at least as fast as the attacking coalition to have a shot at working—and it currently is orders of magnitude slower. So you can’t expect to come in and try to play a “respect people” handbook without first doing an accounting audit on the attacks that have been getting away below the radar, and since those have heavily relied on exploitable weaknesses in the design of the ownership contract system, it seems hard to convince people to unilaterally honor it again when they’re on the receiving end of being screwed over. You’d have to pitch a way to change the game in ways that restore positive sum nature, fast.
“Liberalism is falling, it’s falling towards me, and simply putting it back up doesn’t make it inexploitable or pay me back for how it screwed me over”—most people under most banners right now
I don’t personally feel screwed over, and I suspect many of the people in the coalitions I mentioned feel similarly. I am sympathetic to people who do feel that way, but I am not really asking them to unilaterally honor anything. The only thing in my post that’s a real concrete ask is for people who do already broadly support liberalism, or who have preferred policy agendas that would benefit from liberalism, be more outspoken about their support.
(To clarify, I have been using “liberalism” as a shorthand for “bedrock liberalism”, referring specifically to the principles I listed in the first paragraph—I don’t think everything that everyone usually calls “liberalism” is broadly popular with all the coalitions I listed, but most would at least pay lip service to the specific principles in the OP.)
I don’t really agree with the characterization of recent history as people realizing that “liberalism isn’t working”, and to the degree that I would advocate for any specific policy change, I support a “radical incrementalist” approach. e.g. maybe the endpoint of the ideal concept of property rights is pretty far from wherever we are right now, but to get there we should start with small, incremental changes that respect existing rights and norms as much as possible.
So for example, I think Georgism is a good idea in general, but not a panacea, and a radical and sudden implementation would be illiberal for some of the reasons articulated by @Matthew Barnett here.
I think a more realistic way to phase in Georgism that respects liberal principles would mainly take the form of more efficient property tax regimes—instead of complex rules and constant fights over property tax assessment valuations, there would be hopefully slightly less complex fights over land valuations, with phase-ins that keep the overall tax burden roughly the same. Some property owners with relatively low-value property on higher value land (e.g. an old / low density building in Manhattan) would eventually pay more on the margin, while others with relatively high-value property on lower value land (e.g. a newer / high density building in the exurbs) would pay a bit less. Lots of people in the middle of the property-vs-land value spectrum would pay about the same. But this doesn’t really get at the core philosophical objections you or others might have with current norms around the concept of property ownership in general.
It’s not so much philosophy as game theory. When one’s access to existing is being salami sliced away by incrementally slightly abusing rules, incremental change needs to be at least as fast as the attacking coalition to have a shot at working—and it currently is orders of magnitude slower. So you can’t expect to come in and try to play a “respect people” handbook without first doing an accounting audit on the attacks that have been getting away below the radar, and since those have heavily relied on exploitable weaknesses in the design of the ownership contract system, it seems hard to convince people to unilaterally honor it again when they’re on the receiving end of being screwed over. You’d have to pitch a way to change the game in ways that restore positive sum nature, fast.
“Liberalism is falling, it’s falling towards me, and simply putting it back up doesn’t make it inexploitable or pay me back for how it screwed me over”—most people under most banners right now
I don’t personally feel screwed over, and I suspect many of the people in the coalitions I mentioned feel similarly. I am sympathetic to people who do feel that way, but I am not really asking them to unilaterally honor anything. The only thing in my post that’s a real concrete ask is for people who do already broadly support liberalism, or who have preferred policy agendas that would benefit from liberalism, be more outspoken about their support.
(To clarify, I have been using “liberalism” as a shorthand for “bedrock liberalism”, referring specifically to the principles I listed in the first paragraph—I don’t think everything that everyone usually calls “liberalism” is broadly popular with all the coalitions I listed, but most would at least pay lip service to the specific principles in the OP.)