Geonomics: Bootstrap Development for a Sustainable Planet

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Some self-developers used "geonomics"; they recovered the value of locations and did not tax production, a method proposed by a UN body (Commission, 1996). To recover site value, most of these self-starters taxed private land - rather than buildings, business, or income. A few leased public land.
"Natural Rents" are the monies people spend on the nature they use, paid periodically or in a lump sum, to a private owner or lender or a public agency, to own or use sites, resources, the broadcast spectrum, or the environment as a sink for pollutants. Recovering these rents, in lieu of taxing effort, motivates people two ways. As in the story of the donkey and its driver, recovering Rent spurs people to produce while zero taxes on effort lures people to produce. People who produce sufficiently are more ready, willing, and able to produce sustainably.
Widespread ownership of land is a basic prerequisite for development, as noted many development specialists. At least five times in history, people did distribute land, without bloodshed, following the collection of Rent. While these five jurisdictions did more than just tax land, recovery of Rent did play a key, yet often overlooked, role.

Stream: Economic Sustainability

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Jeffery Smith, president of the Forum on Geonomics, recruits top academics and activists to this nonprofit, which operates by winning grants from better endowed foundations. Editor of The Geonomist, which won a Greenlight Award, he has appeared in both the academic press and in The New York Times and has been interviewed on radio and TV. He has testified before the Russian Duma and had a bill to shift the property tax from buildings to land introduced in the Oregon legislature. A member of the International Society for Ecological Economics and of Mensa, he lives in America’s Pacific Northwest.