Book · 2002 · Economics
Land Is a Big Deal
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I do highly recommend the book. It's one of those books you'll read where you'll just have a completely new perspective on an entire field.
What they say about it
- Discusses analysis in the book“whole analysis in that book”5
The best things said about it
And this is one of those books um I mean it's like there's books you read where like oh that's interesting you know like I guess I should drive prior slightly and there's books like oh [ __ ] why did I not think about it that way.
There's like a whole analysis in that book about you know if you could uh if if people are still commuting like 20 minutes a day you know a lot more land is actually in the same travel distance as was before.
So this is Ricardo's law rent right and it's and there's there's a there's a section on in the book with a bunch of illustrations you can show and so the issue is that um we can't make more land.
It's like if you can raise you know a show in the book the exact figures of how much I think a land value tax could raise and I forget the exact figures but like you can pull up a graph and overlay it here.
Yeah yeah I guess one worry that people might have is listen income taxing is like um you know obviously very inefficient but is there I think you in the book you're talking about the the percentage of income uh that uh of taxed income that is literally to spend on figuring out how much income tax to collect.
One of the things you talked about in the book is, you know, in some sense the value of your land is caused by the other people around you.
Why people recommend it
Land Is a Big Deal by Lars A. Doucet, Scott Alexander, Noah Smith, James Cavin, and Samuel Sibley is an insightful exploration of Georgism, economic rent, and land value taxation. Dwarkesh Patel discussed the book extensively with Lars Doucet on the Dwarkesh Podcast in January 2023, ultimately offering a glowing recommendation at the close of the episode. Patel noted that the book fundamentally altered his perspective on the entire field of economics, challenging conventional assumptions about property and taxation. Doucet used illustrations from the book to explain classical economic concepts, such as Ricardo's law of rent, demonstrating how land speculators optimize financial returns and why society cannot simply manufacture more physical land. The conversation also delved into the administrative inefficiencies of traditional income taxes compared to land value taxes, citing specific figures and analytical models featured in the text. Furthermore, the guests explored how community development and surrounding populations inherently drive up land values, meaning that the financial benefits of location should rightfully be shared publicly rather than captured privately by absentee owners. Patel emphasized that the book belongs to a rare category of literature that completely reorients a reader's worldview, making complex economic theory accessible, engaging, and practically applicable to modern urban housing crises and wealth distribution debates.
Every mention
Dwarkesh Patel anyways I I do highly recommend the book it's one of those books you'll read where you'll just have a compl… 6
“there's like a whole analysis in that book about you know if you could uh if if people are still commuting like 20 minutes a day you know a lot more land is actually in the same travel distance as was before”
“it's like if you can raise you know a show in the book the exact figures of how much I think a land value tax could raise and I forget the exact figures but like you can pull up a graph and overlay it here”
“yeah yeah I guess one worry that people might have is listen income taxing is like um you know obviously very inefficient but is there I think you in the book you're talking about the the percentage of income uh that uh of taxed income that is literally to spend on figuring out how much income tax to collect”
“um and I guess another part of this question then um or the dinosaurs well one of the things you talked about in the book is you know in some sense the value of your land is caused by the other people around you”
“and this is one of those books um I mean it's like there's books you read where like oh that's interesting you know like I guess I should drive prior slightly and there's books like oh [ __ ] why did I not think about it that way”
“anyways I I do highly recommend the book it's one of those books you'll read where you'll just have a completely new perspective on an entire field”
Lars Doucet um and one of them has to do with um there's a there's an image in the book that um this guy um put togethe… 2
“um and one of them has to do with um there's a there's an image in the book that um this guy um put together for me I'll show it to you later um but what it does is that it shows uh the rate of return”
“so this is Ricardo's law rent right and it's and there's there's a there's a section on in the book with a bunch of illustrations you can show and so the issue is that um we can't make more land”
Also mentioned in the same episodes
Other mentions (3: passing, ad reads, own books)
“and you endorse my book”
“but the reason we're talking is that he wrote a review of Henry George's progress in poverty that won Scott Alexander's book review contest and now it has been turned into and expanded into this book land is a big deal”
“um well it progress in poverty. substock.com is not technically my blog it's a group blog where a lot of us Georgia's post”