The House You Own Might Be Costing the World Everything
On the moral weight of a number on your property statement — and what it would really means to give it up There is a graph. It sits somewhere in the latter pages of Fred Harrison’s 1983 book The Power in the Land , and for four decades it has quietly disturbed every reader who has understood it properly. The graph suggests — carefully, with the full weight of economic reasoning behind it — that when we finally fix our broken system of public finance, land values will fall by roughly 70%. Seventy percent. If you own a home, you just felt something tighten in your chest. That is entirely rational. It is also, Fred Harrison would gently but firmly tell you, precisely the reaction that has kept the world broken for so long. This piece is an attempt to sit with that discomfort — not to dissolve it with clever arguments, but to explore honestly what it would mean, economically, socially, morally, and environmentally, for ordinary homeowners to surrender the capital gains they have spent...