I was listening to Bob Edwards interview Ralph Nader, on the occasion of the latter's publication of a new book, and Nader was talking about things the left and the right might be able to agree on. I was in traffic, and only half listening, but when Nader spoke of corporate subsidies, it hit me that one of the biggest corporate subsidies, and one which the average person isn't at all conscious of, is the unearned increment, the possession of unearned wealth.
It isn't that some individuals don't get to collect some, too -- particularly those who own land (with or without a building on it) in or near the major coastal cities, but the lion's share goes to corporations, and their shareholders, who tend to be the 1%.
For more about the unearned increment, start here.
"Our plan involves the imposition of no new tax, since we already tax land values in taxing real estate. To carry it out we have only to abolish all taxes save the tax on real estate, and abolish all of that which now falls on buildings or improvements, leaving only that part of it which now falls on the value of the bare land, increasing that so as to take as nearly as may be the whole of economic rent, or what is sometimes styled the "unearned increment of land values."
Can we get the leaders of the left and right to look at this, or are they owned by the corporations?
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