The Power of Land: Georgism 101
Discusses importance of common ownership of land and natural resources
Georgism is not particularly a leftist tendency.
Commodification of land is only one kind of commodification that is commonly criticized.
Georgism advocates for more general preservation of private ownership for assets used by others in residency and production. As such, it is generally criticized for not offering any credible or comprehensive solution to the structural inequities bound to the relations of private property.
Georgism can be combined with other policies such as democratizing the workplace. Sure, not every Georgist is a leftist. The point is every leftist should be a Georgist. I personally know Georgists that are anti-capitalist.
The labor theory of property, a negative application of which is the justification of Georgism, also provides a strong argument for workers' self-management and critique of capitalist property relations
Georgism offers no criticism against housing commodification, nor even against the home of one household being controlled by another who lives elsewhere.
It also offers no criticism against business owners controlling enterprise though the wage system.
If the assets developed on land were controlled by the public, then Georgism would satisfy no demand still unresolved.
If land simply were rented by the public, yet under private control, then the assets on it would remain privately controlled, and the public would never achieve control over housing or enterprise.
Georgism is about 1 policy that can be combined with other policies.
A level of private control by workers' collectives is actually a prerequisite of having workers' self-management. If the public decides every aspect of property's management that would violate the inalienable right to workplace democracy.
Some strands of anti-capitalist thought overemphasize centralized democratic control rather than decentralization.
In terms of housing, Georgist land rent should fund a UBI
Regardless of how you are understanding “workplace democracy”, no conflict occurs between the public controlling land usage and the public controlling enterprise.
Georgism simply advocates that lands would be rented from the public by private entities, some of which may be private enterprise or rented housing. The general understanding is that private profits would be partially recovered by the public to compensate for private use of land. It expresses no support for the abolition of profit.
If the public controlled enterprise and housing, then it would of course control land usage. There is no particularly clear case for any problem in leftist tendencies being solved by Georgism.
The democratic principle is that the people that are governed in or by an organization should have ultimate positive control rights over that organization. In an enterprise, management governs the people that actually work in the enterprise. Management does not govern the people outside the enterprise. Workplace democracy thus means that the people that work in the enterprise should hold all the positive control rights over the enterprise
You seem to be using the term “workplace democracy” to erase any control that he public might assert of the overall management of land.
Yet, the land itself demands to be controlled by no particular faction among the public, but rather by the public as a whole.
The interest of everyone is not only in controlling the enterprise in which oneself is a participant, but also the broader practices over how land is managed and enterprise is interrelated.
If an enterprise seeks use of lands and buildings, then the public has an interest in regulating the particular access to them by the enterprise.
Public regulation is compatible with Georgism. Sure, in that sense, the public can and should have some negative control rights on the overall management of land.
The public's control cannot extend to complete control without hollowing out the notion of workplace democracy. Workers' collectives have to have some partial rights to control land relevant to their operations as well for there to be workers' self-management
Land allocation must to be managed.
It is not agreeable for any group to use any plot of land for any purpose that is beneficial to members of the group. Further, it would not be beneficial to a group generally to use land outside of some system of more general planning, for proximity to other buildings, resources, and infrastructure Agreements must be negotiated through some general process of land management.
As I earlier explained, Georgism tends not to provide any further value, or solve to any unresolved problem, for leftist tendencies.
Why is it not agreeable for any group to use land for purposes that is beneficial to the members of the group? I don't see how you could have workplace democracy without this. Of course, the workers in an enterprise are going to use their democratic control rights to make decisions that benefit them.
Sure, there has to be some sort of urban planning and regulations on land use. That is perfectly compatible with Georgism
Urban planning and land allocation are required for resolving which group may use which land, and which usage is permitted.
Otherwise, conflict would be intractable, and exchange and transportation would be dysfunctional.
If land is managed cooperatively, then once a group is allocated use of land, it may proceed with use, but the public still holds an interest in broader supervision, and in cases of revised planning or observed mismanagement, reallocation may be warranted.
Land value taxation actually solves the mismanagement problem because as the location site-value increases the workers using the land have to pay more. This gives them an economic incentive to use the land more productively in order to afford the higher land rent
The public interest in managing land is not limited to assessing how much revenue is generated from its use, nor necessarily strongly bound to such considerations.