Land: A New Paradigm for a Thriving World

by Martin Adams

What if we lived in a world where everyone had enough? A world where everyone mattered and where people lived in harmony with nature? What if the solution to our economic, social, and ecological problems was right underneath our feet? Land has been sought after throughout human history. Even today, people struggle to get onto the property ladder and view real estate as an important way to build wealth. Yet, as the reader will discover through this book, the act of owning land—and our urge to profit from it—causes economic booms and busts, social and cultural decline, and environmental devastation. A New Paradigm for a Thriving World introduces a radically new economic model that ensures a more fair and abundant reality for everyone. It is a book for those who dream of a better world, for themselves and future generations.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Part The Cost of Ignorance
1. The Production of Wealth
2. The Value of Location
3. The Free Market
4. Social Decline
5. Business Recessions
6. Ecocide
7. Earth, Our Home

Part A New Paradigm for a Thriving World
8. Restoring Communities
9. Keep What You Earn, Pay for What You Use
10. Local Autonomy
11. Affordable Housing
12. Thriving Cities
13. Sustainable Farming
14. The Price of Peace
15. A New Paradigm

A Personal Note
The Math Behind the Science
References & Suggestions for Further Reading
Endnotes
Index

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Economics, Philosophy, Environment

208 pages, Paperback

First published March 3, 2015

Reviews

[Derek Woodard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a realtor, so the irony of reading this was pretty enjoyable in itself. There are some great points throughout, though to ever reach the scale upon which these ideas would be effective we may have to be on the verge of global pandemonium towards poverty and societal imbalance. What really struck home was the notion that we claim earth belongs to us, that we can own land, when really we all belong to the earth.

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was frustrated with this extended essay. While Adams made a number of excellent observations about the role of property in American society, he failed to convince me that his solution — community land contributions — is the all-around elixir he thinks it is. This has to do with the numbers he presents as well as with his arguments.

[HiSierrafim Audio · Rating 5 out of 5]

We made this book! Actually, first Martin Adams wrote this book and then he asked us to produce it as an audiobook.

So call this a hopeful 5 stars, hopeful that listeners will find this book, hopeful that the powerful ideas it artfully conveys can make that much more progress in(to) the world, and hopeful that our collective optimism will win the day.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thesis: "monopoly of land—not the monopoly of money—is the primary driver of poverty and inequality."

Those who come to this book seeking solutions to poverty and inequality (and climate change for that matter) will likely be disappointed. And not because Adams has no solutions to offer: he has a rather detailed plan for replacing taxation with community land contributions as a means of addressing inequality, reducing sprawl, and making our economy more sustainable.

Instead, those who seek solutions will be disappointed by how pie-in-the-sky this plan is. A lot of "wishful thinking" they'll say.

This is the dilemma of tackling any big, complex world challenge: your solution will be seen as either entirely impractical or far too incremental to make a difference.

Adams is not naive: he knows that achieving a new economic paradigm will require more than mere political implementation, it will require a shift in consciousness. Marx wanted to develop class consciousness, and Adams wants to develop consciousness of interdependence, interconnectedness:

When we sincerely ask, “What serves the highest good of all?” we evolve from resembling cancer cells, which multiply without regard for the rest of the body, to healthy cells in the body of life, aware of our interconnectedness.

Those who come to this book seeking a new lens, a new kind of awareness, will leave satisfied. Any book that gives me that gets five stars.

This chart from the book, by the way, will stick with me: https://assets-global.website-files.c...

[Alexandre · Rating 4 out of 5]

na obra progress and poverty, do final do século xix, o economista henry george argumenta que, uma vez que a terra é património de toda a sociedade e que a pobreza tem como base a sua distribuição desigual, o usufruo da terra deve ser taxado de acordo com o seu valor, desincentivando assim o rentismo e a especulação.

este livro de 130 páginas é boa propaganda georgista para os tempos modernos, uma leitura bem necessária para quem deseja enfrentar a crise habitacional em que vivemos. a falta de um caminho concreto para a adoção desta medida (com o clássico apelo ao rendimento básico incondicional pelo meio) pode levar a acusações de wishful thinking, cingindo-se o livro à sensibilização e apelo à mudança.

[Shirley Li · Rating 4 out of 5]

A policy maker must read! also for all who believe in equality. The author’s forwarded thinking is built around data and reality instead of taking political stands, although many parts would trigger political debates. Many opinion spoke for the thoughts I had over my career as a city planner. Ownership is a concept created by humans to fulfill the desire, but how much is enough for one? Community Land Contribution is bold but might be the most sustainable way out for all of us. This book set the ground for a drastic change of our reality. It also opened a new window for how we think about our land and hopefully we can see implementations in reality.

Listened the audiobook, which made the book even more intriguing with its high quality production and lively narrative. Enjoyed it and will get a paper back for future reference.

[Corey Gingerich · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting economic perspective interlaced with a lot of wishful thinking. I did enjoy the book, but it left me with a lot of questions that the author did not answer.

[Reuben Wood · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first part of this book was great, I felt like I was setting myself up for an excellent read. Part 2 really flopped for me however; I think he presents a very interesting idea, but one that undoubtedly has many holes.
Firstly, coming from a working-class perspective, the system proposed by Adams as a fix-all did not excite me. Despite his continued insistence on its simplicity, the idea felt overly convoluted and I kept wondering - how would this actually affect me? I did not feel that question answered by the end of the book.
The idea of having no taxation system was certainly an interesting one, I did appreciate the out-of-the-box thinking - but what would happen to those with already giant fortunes? What would happen to the pre-existing billionaires, global monopolies, aristocracies and corrupt governments? Would there be any chance that they would simply crumble at the almighty weight of a land value contribution? Would we charge Bill Gates more than the local greengrocer? From what I gathered, apparently no; Adams seems to be suggesting that everyone pays the same (or equal to what they use) and that the money paid into the community would magically find itself with the people who need it and then because people can't make a profit (or as much of a profit) off simply land-banking or renting anymore then the rich people would start giving up their properties and the poor people could finally move in? and then because of this sudden relinquishment of property and because now no one feels grumpy from having to pay tax anymore because now they all simply have to pay to use the land that they've just bought or that their family have already owned for centuries instead (it's okay though cos if they're poor they'll get their money back through UBI, but if they're rich it's also okay because they'll be paying less in land contributions than they were in tax plus also, cos it Universal, they would also get UBI), because of all that everyone's now super happy. And what's even better is that now because we're not paying tax and we have more money we can now all spend more money on more things which will keep the economy going. And this is why we don't need those pesky taxes because taxes just stop us from spending money which keeps the economy going and god forbid we stop buying things we don't need. Lord smite me if I ever feel content with what I have and decide I don't need to keep buying new things to keep the economy going. The only reason I eat home-cooked meals and try not to buy useless junk and be content with what I have is because I'm paying so much in taxes that I can't be a good little consumer and eat at Maccy D's 5 times a week, whilst buying lots of yummy cigarettes, new clothes from Primark and the latest sweatshop iPhone. Or no, will sweatshops have utterly disappeared under this mighty sword of land contribution tax? Sorry, not tax - fee! fee! Land contribution fee. We don't have taxes anymore! just a small bit of community rent and good old-fashioned unbridled consumerism. And UBI, because that's trendy these days right? Oh yeah, also a good old-fashioned dose of middle-class positivity and "Yeah man, let's just love everyone and not pay taxes, the world will be great then."
Not convoluted in the slightest!
A major question that I never felt was addressed, what about gains made through online revenue?? Amazon doesn't exactly make its money by hoarding land in central London or New York. Its land value contributions would be infinitesimal in comparison to what it earns. How would we ascertain that the privileged and the wealthy were paying enough? There seem to be many loopholes that a large multinational corporation could slip through. I could ask so many questions in this area! I don't know, perhaps Adams has all the answers to these questions, but decided not to put them in the book in case no one would read it if it was longer than 130 pages.
Perhaps the idea could be to wait for a world where we've already fixed all the major issues of corruption and inequality and THEN apply a land value contribution system, replacing tax?
Let's imagine that then, take away the large-scale corruption and inequality issues we currently face and assume everyone is already coming from a far more level playing field. We just have middle-class and working-class people; no one with more than a couple of houses, or an income of higher than triple or quadruple the lowest full-time earners in society. I like the idea that the money was sent bottom-up, rather than top-down. I would feel far more comfortable paying taxes if I knew that the money was going to my local community. I like the idea that the money starts with the community and then only a small bit of that is passed onto the central government to finance national requirements. To a certain extent though, we already have this in the UK with council tax vs income tax and national insurance, and council tax is so grossly, unfairly penalising to working-class / low-income individuals - and the more I think about it, the more land contributions feel a bit like a similar idea, dressed up in a different way.
I could have forgiven some of these holes had he used more leniency in his language, but Adams constantly writes as if this idea would solve everything and that he has it all figured out. You can't just write some nice things in a book, do a bit of maths and say look everyone! I've sorted it! Inequality? Corruption? Enviromentalism? The Isreal-Palestine conflict? pshaw! my ill-explained idea will solve all that!
Writing this review, I am lowering my rating from 3 stars to 2. I knew there was something off while reading the book, but it's not until I've sat down and unpacked it all that I've understood how convoluted and ill-thought-out this theory appears to me.
All that being said, the initial part really was excellent. I've read a fair amount of books on inequality and various political answers to these questions at this point, and Adams genuinely did offer an interesting and novel perspective to me. I resonated heavily with how well he framed the inequality of our current system of land use, and how unfair it is to anyone trying to enter the market. What I enjoyed about part 2 was the attempt at disentangling the taxation system - something which is often, and perhaps erroneously, at the heart of left-leaning solutions - and his suggestion of instead resorting to what I might call "trickle-up" economics.

[Lucille Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Practitioners and scholars who fall into panacea traps falsely assume that all problems of resource governance can be represented by a small set of simple models, because they falsely perceive that the preferences and perceptions of most resource users are the same." -Elinor Ostrom, in 'Going Beyond Panaceas'

Adams makes a fascinating and thoughtful romp through the difficulties that comes out of the private ownership of land. And much of it is very well informed — the bad incentives for homeowners to restrict homes being built near them, for property owners to seek rents, for accumulation and closure of productive lands — on these negative incentives. But he claims that a radical break from allowing private ownership through the use of credits paid to communities will solve all these problems. I, respectfully, disagree.

With any system, some actors will discover ways to "game" (so to speak) the rules. And there are unintended side effects, which Adams mentions in the cases of farming and personal homes but claims could be solved through tweaking. But I wonder if this totalizing vision of eliminating land rents blinds him to the tweaks we can make in our current system, through changes in incentives and structures. Perhaps he allows the perfect (as he sees it) to be the enemy of the good, as can be seen in his railing against zoning changes because they don't change the system of land profiteering.

And as a person who is rather skeptical of both the current system and his proposed system, I am unsure as to whether his proposals wouldn't just lead to other resource-management problems. Perhaps an Arrow Impossibility-type constraint exists here, that no possible system could solve all the evils we see in the world. And if so, why would any one system be preferred to another? Only on real, tangible effects could they we compared, and I frankly am skeptical that the tangible effects of Adam's system would in net be anything more than a Panacea Trap.

[Dominic Bower · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fantastic, succinct, and modernized take on Georgism. Having read Progress and Poverty recently, it's definitely an effective abridgement of that philosophy (aside from some splitting-hairs over the name of a land value tax, which I rolled my eyes at).

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

The terms are there. The knowledge isn't. But I guess this volume was never there to come with a structured idea, rather to give a howl of solidarity with some ideas.