Georgists have proposed a variety of ways to accommodate homeowners in a Georgist transition, like a slow phase-in towards a LVT across some decades (specifically the Gradual Reform: 20 years to 75 percent portion of that article) to give the economy and society time to adjust. Perhaps we could be more instant with transitioning using a variety of tools, like government bonds. There is also another practical edge to this, as unfortunately we’ve built up our financial system to revolve so heavily around high prices for finite resources, that things like land serve as a massive backing for our current financial structure (as covered by Mike Bird in his book, The Land Trap); that is something we don’t want to crash.

This is also before we even account for the massive benefits that would come to all residents of a Georgist location: like a stronger economy, prettier and more efficient land use, and better funding for public services; or even the fact that some current landowners could pay less in taxes, and that future landowners won’t have the burden shifted on to them when buying land since upfront sale prices will drop (which also eliminates that aforementioned financial reliance on land). We have the tools to transition to a truly just economic system in the future while accommodating for the present. And of course, these ideas of transitioning will take time and effort, but we’ve gotten so deep in an unjust system of landownership that it’s what we’ll need to get out of it.

It’s for this reason why it’s so painful when we do the opposite of that to keep the land equity of politically charged homeowners intact and recoup very little land value through taxation. There is no better example of this than California, where many landowning homeowners some 50 years ago didn’t want to face the increased taxes to pay society for their finite privilege in land. So, the state passed Prop 13 in 1978, which limited property taxes to 1% and property reassessment increases to 2%, except for when the property is exchanged on the market.

The state sacrificed the ability to tax land values (since property taxes target both land and buildings as one) instead of making the clearly correct decision of universally exempting buildings and improvements from the property tax and using the land revenue to keep taxes on labor and investment low to none. Now, California’s got an epidemic of homeless seniors who’ve been all but locked out by the state’s homeowners turning themselves into a landed gentry. For every land-rich grandma people cry over when sensible proposals come up to tax their land’s value while accommodating them in some way, there is a truly poor grandma locked out by our current system that no one seems to remember.