People thought social security sounded dystopian and socialist, but here we are, nearly a century later with it.
From wikipedia: "Opponents also decried the proposal as socialism.[8][9][10] In a Senate Finance Committee hearing, one Senator asked Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, "Isn't this socialism?" She said that it was not, but he continued, "Isn't this a teeny-weeny bit of socialism?"[11]"
What I propose is merely a market regulation for the benefit of society. Again, we're not making more land.
I like to use the "Rich Liberal" island analogy: if we think of our nation's land as island, would we be comfortable with one person owning all of it? Imagine if all of America's richest liberals started buying land, huge swaths of land, like, entire states and they'd sell it only to people who were poor or whom committed to identifying with their ideology. Over time what does that start to sound like - one guy who owns lots of land, who only lets people whom he likes live on it? Sound like feudalism to you?
After a while, when that one guy owns most of the land, he can start to dictate value of the rest of it. You don't like Bezos, so you hold out. Eventually, all your neighbors, all your community, is owned by him. His minions, whom he's sold land cheap too, control local government. The build walls around your property. They stop maintaining the roads in front of your house. They make life miserable for you and our family. Eventually, you break down and sell your land to Bezos, but he know nobody else wants that land, so he offers you a pittance.
People act like this isn't possible. That no-one is that rich. What if we viewed that single person as a single TYPE of person? A group, or even an entire social class. When does that group's hold over all the land start to sound like a monopoly? Sure, they fight amongst themselves for control of the land, just as fuedal Kings did, but the lower classes? They no longer have a chance to own the land.
This doesn't bother us because we think of the USA as a huge swath of land that nobody could own in its entirely, so people could just move away from the liberal Kings land (California) but eventually that wealth and those ideas will creep outwards.
BTW: Jeff Bezos is worth more than quite a few countries.
To be clear, I'm not pointing the blame solely at the wealthy for their gobbling up land. I don't think we need strictly socialist controls over who can own land, but I do feel that merely reigning in debt, loans, etc will not put any dent in the ability of ultra-wealthy to own huge swathes of land, sometimes in what were once affordable cities, and turning large swathes of properties into rentals.
Real quick while I'm editing: SVREX you mention you pay (or dont pay) a homestead tax. I like those. I think we need more of them.
