The Georgist view is that income tax is both wrong and damaging, that if people are taxed more they work less.

The reverse is true in my case. If taxed less I would work less, and have the same amount in hand. I do not "forever chase income" - I set myself a reasonable target. I sit on a particular point on the income/leisure tradeoff where I just do not operate in the way critics of taxation see fit.

Look. I'm privately employed and I'd rather pay less tax. We all would. But this is my own greed at work, and I've never been able to justify, to myself, my desire to pay less tax in any sort of broader philosophical context, and can't see the merits in other's justifications.

Tax is not such a disencentive to economic activity. Net profit is what matters, and as long as there is a net profit there will be economic activity.

Tax does pay for things in society that benefit us - our quality of life is based on more than just the money we have in our hands. We get benefits by other means.

Georgists would to some degree agree with the above statement. However, the interaction of issues is where we dissagree. Some Georgists would agree that social spending is worthwhile, but feel that the intrusion of income tax is such an abhorrent thing compared to LVT that it is not really justified if income tax is providing the money.

My view is that income tax is not such an intrusion, and LVT has its intrusive elements, so that positive effect of social spending justies the intrusion, regardless of the source of money.

LVT is deemed fair because the "community" provides the increase in value.

Now, consider that we make something and sell it for money. Georgists assume this operation is completely personal and private, dependent on the sovereign will of the producer/creator/artisan. However, it is not.

In growing up, we rely on the community to provide us with a spoken and written language. We rely on it for a moral code. We rely on it for the thought structures we use in interpreting the world. We rely on it for the skills we use in manipulating the world. We rely on it to provide us the abstract concept of value which we use in trade. And we rely on the outside world to provide us with someone to sell our widget to.

The community _has_ contributed something whenever we make and sell something. Actions do not take place in a Georgist vacuum.

This view was developed independently of any outside reading. But I've since found out that Thomas Henry Huxley came up with similar thoughts. (see here ).

Huxley's viewpoint is much stronger than mine. In our actions the societal and personal contributions come together, both have their part. But, because there is this combination, it means that we cannot say that we a "moral right" to our own works. Society has played its part, too. While my view emphasises "a mixture", Huxley's view totally denies any personal input.

Now, bring this up to some Geonomists and they will concede that it may be true, but pragmatically the best way of looking at things is to presume personal sovereignty.

Note the word "pragmatically". The strength and vigour of this part of the Geonomic argument relied on the moral high ground. It was not just a good outcome, it was the _right_ thing to do. But Georgists have lost the moral high ground. Income tax is no longer the "intrusion" they make it out to be. It becomes a pressure, a component of the economic mix.

Another Geonomic response is that with knowledge, we all a nominally equal access to it, so it factors out. Land is a monopoly, something we do not have equal access to. Therefore we must become more concerned about land.

First, to the extent that land is a monopoly and knowledge is not, then this is of course true. But, the driving force becomes "monopoly", not the "intrusion of income tax". Income tax is no longer "morally wrong".

Further, knowledge is not free. You must spend time, and possibly money, in order to get it. Someone else may have a monopoly on knowledge.

For the time that anything is in "shortage", it earns a component much like the economic rent of land, see Quasi rent. People might be said to earn economic rent on the monopoly of knowledge that they have at a given time.

The conclusion of this is that knowledge is not something we all have equal access to. Knowledge is a commodity, and it is possible to have a monopoly on it, and earn economic rent from it. So, land does not have prominence over knowledge, and income tax is still not the "intrusion" Geonomists make it out to be.

There's knowledge, but also the ability to use it - that is, intelligence. Intelligence is unevenly spread, so those with more intelligence might be said to be taking advantage of a "free gift of nature" with respect to those with the minimum amount of intelligence needed to function adequately in society. But this is a whole tangle of issues which do not need to be pursued further; it is only stated as a counterexample.

From this point of view, taxes on production and exchange, are not immoral, as the process is not private and personal.

Apart from this, one view is that it is only fair to remove more taxes from those who are more able to pay, with indicators of this being more than just the land someone owns.

This is not just a left-wing socialistic notion; it is the view of small l liberals when they embrace a "fair society".

(Foreign and particularly US readers - note that to a first approximation, read "liberals" in Australian politics as "conservatives". "small l liberals" are those people who endorse notions like "the community" and "look after those who deserve it". Remember, that's just a first approximation, but sufficient for our purposes.)

Georgists may point to the costs of running such a tax system. However, if we assume that the tax system is fairer, then this fairness makes that cost worth paying. Sure, some people may avoid tax. But it is not clear whether this is a problem with the driving principles behind this tax, or its implementation.

The implementation of such a tax system is to some degree a result of politics. However, Georgists as times distance themselves from problems, saying "the implications are a political issue", so the fact that such a tax system has political issues does not make it worse than a Geonomic scheme.

This is clearly a different viewpoint to the Geonomic one, but is reasonable in its own way. The Geonomic derision of income and other taxes are a consequence of its assumptions.

This analysis does not devalue the Geonomic principle that unearned increased land values are unfairly captured by the land owner, and should be taxed.

It is just that land value taxation does not have a superior moral position compared to other taxes.

If we tax one form of economic activity more than another, this can have damaging effects on the economy. It is, however, a separate issue.

We can still say that some taxes are more painful and should be replaced with other taxes - payroll tax, for example. But that is a separate issue to whether the taxes intrude on a "private" domain.