As described in Mason Gaffney’s essay below, the current system of land markets is very distorted, which distorts the rest of the entire economy, resulting in job shortages, lower wages, homelessness, less affordable housing, less affordable products and services, and unnecessary poverty for many.
Markets only work if the distinction between the two kinds of property is addressed: products made by human effort, versus land and its natural resources, which no person produced.
That is why property in land needs to be treated somewhat differently from products made by human effort, so that there need to be clear limits on the power of landowners, as advocated in the DFC’s Principles and Platform. (more…)