Lars Doucet — Progress, poverty, Georgism, & why rent is too damn high

One of my best episodes ever. Lars Doucet is the author of Land is a Big Deal, a book about Georgism which has been praised by Vitalik Buterin, Scott Alexander, and Noah Smith. Sam Altman is the lead investor in his new startup, ValueBase.

Talking with Lars completely changed how I think about who creates value in the world and who leeches off it.

We go deep into the weeds on Georgism:

* Why do even the wealthiest places in the world have poverty and homelessness, and why do rents increase as fast as wages?

* Why are land-owners able to extract the profits that rightly belong to labor and capital?

* How would taxing the value of land alleviate speculation, NIMBYism, and income and sales taxes?

Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.

Follow Lars on Twitter. Follow me on Twitter.

Timestamps

(00:00:00) - Intro

(00:01:11) - Georgism

(00:03:16) - Metaverse Housing Crises

(00:07:10) - Tax Leisure?

(00:13:53) - Speculation & Frontiers

(00:24:33) - Social Value of Search 

(00:33:13) - Will Georgism Destroy The Economy?

(00:38:51) - The Economics of San Francisco

(00:43:31) - Transfer from Landowners to Google?

(00:46:47) - Asian Tigers and Land Reform

(00:51:19) - Libertarian Georgism

(00:55:42) - Crypto

(00:57:16) - Transitioning to Georgism

(01:02:56) - Lars's Startup & Land Assessment 

(01:15:12) - Big Tech

(01:20:50) - Space

(01:23:05) - Copyright

(01:25:02) - Politics of Georgism

(01:33:10) - Someone Is Always Collecting Rents

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkesh.com