In 1915, the economist Robert Murray Haig wrote a report on a plan to exempt buildings and other improvements from taxation, as part of a campaign by Georgist Groups.
It's exceptionally detailed and fascinating, but I'll give you the TLDR: it wasn't worth it.
This is the report. I'd love your thoughts!
And here's the final report of the committee:
1929 chart on the effects of land-value taxation on land values. What do you think?
Original source: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Population_Land_Values_and_Government/08daiI_-NUkC?hl=en&gbpv=1
Hi everyone! My name is Daniel Wortel-London, a visiting assistant professor of history at Bard College, member of the north jersey dsa, and former member of the CBK DSA political education committee.
I recently wrote a book on the history of economic development policy in New York City entitled The Menace of Prosperity: New York City and the Struggle for Economic Development, 1865-1981. The book tells the story of how urban economic strategies have been shaped—and often constrained—by what I call its “fiscal imagination”: the dominant belief that development must serve growth and capital first. But it also surfaces a rich, often-overlooked history of people organizing for alternatives—public housing, cooperatives, land-value taxation, and community-controlled institutions rooted in justice and care.
It's been reviewed favorably in Jacobin, and I've written pieces for Phenomenal World and the Nation based on it. I've also given talks on the book to the Hudson Valley DSA, with more in the works.
Assorted Praise:
“If you want THE history book for the Zohran era, read Daniel Wortel-London’s great ‘The Menace of Prosperity’”
- Pete Davis, founder of the Democracy Policy Network
I've learned so much about the city, about the intellectual history of urban political economy, about municipal finance, and so much more from [The Menace of Prosperity]; it's allowed me to see urban political history in ways I could never have imagined.
- Mason Williams, author of "City of Ambition"
"One of the most innovative NYC history books to be published in a long time. Highly recommended!"
- Nicholas Dagen Bloom
“Shockingly provocative” and
“A must-read for any scholar or policymaker invested in the city’s future”- Jonathan Soffer
"The Silent Spring of urban economics, "a manifesto for reclaiming cities from the 1%," "dismantles century-old economic dogmas with the precision of a scholar and the urgency of a street protest."- Goodreads
"Both richly detailed and visionary, The Menace of Prosperity is an ambitious and important new history of New York’s recurring struggles over growth and inequality." - Rick McGahey
"As the prospect of a Mamdani mayorality becomes reality, city hall staffers would benefit from reading Wortel-London's cautionary tale of what happens if a city refuses to confront the vested interests holding it for ransom."- Jacobin
- "The Menace of Prosperity deserves to join the classics of urbanism by Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, and others...It is a great, great book."
- Russell Arben Fox, Professor of Political Science at Friends University
I'd love your thoughts on the book - please let me know if you'd like a copy or if you'd like to chat more about it. Thank you so much!
I hope you are well! My name is Daniel Wortel-London, a historian at Bard College. I've written a new history of economic thought and politics for the University of Chicago Press entitled "The Menace of Prosperity: New York City and the Struggle for Economic Development, 1865–1981" that I thought you'd like to check out.
Many local policymakers make decisions based on a deep-seated belief: what’s good for the rich is good for cities. Convinced that local finances depend on attracting wealthy firms and residents, municipal governments lavish public subsidies on their behalf. Whatever form this strategy takes—tax-exempt apartments, corporate incentives, debt-financed mega projects—its rationale remains consistent and assumed to be true. But this wasn’t always the case. Between the 1870s and the 1970s, a wide range of activists, citizens, and intellectuals in New York City connected local fiscal crises to the greed and waste of the rich. These figures saw other routes to development, possibilities rooted in alternate ideas about what was fiscally viable.
In The Menace of Prosperity, Daniel Wortel-London argues that urban economics and politics are shaped by what he terms the “fiscal imagination” of policymakers, activists, advocates, and other figures. His survey of New York City during a period of explosive growth shows how residents went beyond the limits of redistributive liberalism to imagine how their communities could become economically viable without the largesse of the wealthy. Their strategies—which included cooperatives, public housing, land-value taxation, public utilities, and more—centered the needs and capabilities of ordinary residents as the basis for local economies that were both prosperous and just.
Overturning stale axioms about economic policy, The Menace of Prosperity shows that not all growth is productive for cities. Wortel-London’s ambitious history demonstrates the range of options we’ve abandoned and hints at the economic frameworks we could still realize—and the more democratic cities that might result.
Praise:
“If you want THE history book for the Zohran era, read Daniel Wortel-London’s great ‘The Menace of Prosperity’”
- Pete Davis, founder of the Democracy Policy Network
I've learned so much about the city, about the intellectual history of urban political economy, about municipal finance, and so much more from [The Menace of Prosperity]; it's allowed me to see urban political history in ways I could never have imagined.
- Mason Williams, author of "City of Ambition"
"One of the most innovative NYC history books to be published in a long time. Highly recommended!"
- Nicholas Dagen Bloom
“Shockingly provocative” and
“A must-read for any scholar or policymaker invested in the city’s future”- Jonathan Soffer
"The Silent Spring of urban economics, "a manifesto for reclaiming cities from the 1%," "dismantles century-old economic dogmas with the precision of a scholar and the urgency of a street protest."- Goodreads
"Both richly detailed and visionary, The Menace of Prosperity is an ambitious and important new history of New York’s recurring struggles over growth and inequality." - Rick McGahey
"As the prospect of a Mamdani mayorality becomes reality, city hall staffers would benefit from reading Wortel-London's cautionary tale of what happens if a city refuses to confront the vested interests holding it for ransom."- Jacobin
- "The Menace of Prosperity deserves to join the classics of urbanism by Lewis Mumford, Jane Jacobs, and others...It is a great, great book."
- Russell Arben Fox, Professor of Political Science at Friends University
Hi all,
I hope you are well. My name is Daniel Wortel-London, a historian at Bard College. I've written a book about radical economic movements in New York City between the 1870s and the 1970s called "The Menace of Prosperity." There's a lot on Henry George in the book, which I've brought up in an interview with the Henry George program, the Talking Headways podcast, and Phenomenal World.
I argue that Henry George's movement emerged in a brief window when older paradigms of economic development were discredited by the 1873 Depression, and gained a good deal of policy success in the early 1900s. By this time, however, a split emerged among Georgists between those who wanted the LVT to lower land values, and those who wanted it to raise those values. This split, together with a mobilized opposition and other forces, marginalized Georgism for a generation after that.
Lots more in the book: in any case I'd love your thoughts on the work, and would love to answer any questions you have about it!
Sincerely,
Daniel
