I’m all for people growing their own food and practicing regenerative farming. As someone who studied permaculture design 12 years ago, i set up my own homestead with veggie plots, fruit trees, chickens, goats, beehives, and lots of preserving and home-making projects. I gave up most of it a few years ago because I was getting too old to handle it all. So my thought to add to this idea is to allow investors (like me) to fund homesteads in exchange for products from these homesteads.
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Far, far too coercive. We need to END real estate taxes, not add to them, no matter now “small” the addition starts to be. Not everyone should be farming. Many people have a brown thumb, or simply don’t have the knack. I don’t want to buy produce from an unknown source under your idea. I have a brown thumb, hard alkaline soil, and no water. I would be penalized for this. We need to end factory farming, but this isn’t the way to do it. Offer to allow people to raise produce, teach them how, even give them some incentive, but not by taking money by force from someone else. We don’t need to trade one tyranny for another. The worst tyrants are people who think they’re doing it for the public good.
Yes agreed, thank you! That’s actually one of the main points of the program - it’s supposed to combat the 15-minute city plan in The Great Reset by giving people affordable options to move into rural areas. It will lower the cost of living in cities by drawing people out to the country, it’s a win win win win in my opinion!
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I can definitely understand your worries! A few things:
- if you don’t know how to farm and aren’t willing to farm - this program isn’t for you, participation isn’t mandatory.
- the source of your food would be known thanks to blockchain technology that makes tracking easy. Anybody found not in compliance with the program or not using organic farming would face heavy penalties as described in the policy. If you’re not familiar with blockchain technology, you should take a look at how it works - it has the ability to protect privacy while ensuring transparency.
- you seem to disagree with taxes in general, considering your characterization of all taxation being ‘tyranny’, but I’d argue lowering the cost of living to make it manageable for people while diversifying the economy and increasing access to organic produce makes this tax worth it, especially because it would be left to states to decide how much they much assistance they want to provide. I consider taxes to be negative when they are used for handouts to the rich, for corrupt contractors, and for war, but if taxes are used to benefit people, I don’t consider that tyranny. That’s likely a philosophical difference between us that we’re unlikely to overcome in an exchange online, but I would encourage you to consider Singapore, which is often touted as a capitalist heaven (economically speaking) but has a significant public housing program. Austria isn’t known to be socialist, yet it also has a public housing program that has played a big role in helping Singapore to have one of the highest median wealth rankings in the world.
- I’d encourage you to avoid thinking so black and white, and to look at the merits of specific policies instead of thinking “tax=bad” as oversimplifying everything often leads to negative consequences.
Thanks for taking the time to check out the program!
That’s a great idea! I will note that and see how it can be implemented once the idea gains traction. I see no problem with allowing individual investors to enter the market, but I do believe we want to keep large private equity and hedge funds out of our food supply. But allowing individual investors to be more involved is a win win!
Yes agreed! Imagine if we brought back that home farming tradition while solving our housing crisis? We need to return to our roots and help people see how the American Dream can be realistically achievable.
Thanks for the share! I’m a big fan of The Venus Project, but that would require the entire world to be on board. Do you think that’s a realistic goal within our lifetimes?
I think we have an irrational fear of taxes in America because our government doesn’t usually spend our taxes in ways that benefit us - instead they’ve been used to wage war across the globe. I’m in favor of lowering overall taxes paid by reducing military spending, and getting the country healthy will drastically reduce our spending on healthcare.
However, Singapore and Austria are both known as capitalist countries but have significant housing programs. Have you ever looked into either of their programs?
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Thanks for taking the time to check out the program! A few things:
Let’s dive into this with some calculations:
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Total Land Area of the US: The total land area of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii but excluding overseas territories, is approximately 2.26 billion acres.
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US Population: As of the last data available up to 2024, the population of the US was roughly 331 million people.
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Land per Person Calculation: If we divide the total land area by the population:
- 2,260,000,000 acres / 331,000,000 people ≈ 6.83 acres per person.
From this calculation, it appears that there is indeed more than enough land in America for every citizen to have 1 acre of land, with over 5 additional acres left per person.
That being said, I don’t believe most people would be willing to leave cities, because not everyone wants to live in the country. Also, this plan would not completely cover the downpayment, and many people have no savings so if you don’t have any savings to contribute to the downpayment, you literally won’t be able to participate.
This plan does not require 1 parent to stay home, but makes the option more realistic for people who desire that by helping control the cost of living. I am not someone who believes women who want a career should be forced to remain home, and this policy isn’t designed to force that on anyone, it just provides the option for those who prefer to stay home.
The flat tax would only be paid on the consumption of organic produce made through this program. If you don’t want to pay the tax, you wouldn’t buy any produce made in the program.
This won’t replace commercial farmers and isn’t intended to; it’s intended to produce more organic food to meet the growing demand for fresh food as we transition our food supply.
Please let me know if my clarifications change your opinion at all; I look forward to hearing back from you!
Niiice, thanks for sharing! You know what they say about great minds! If you have created a proposal on this website feel free to link it here, I’d love to check it out and support!
Agreed! I believe programs like this are efficient because they tackle multiple problems we face with the same strategy. Hopefully, Elon is combing through this website!
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The program is definitely voluntary! It won’t force anyone to do anything. Utilizing blockchain would mean this program doesn’t create a gigantic amount of bureaucracy. However, the produce would need to be inspected and regulated efficiently, so some would be necessary.
I wasn’t aware BLM owns land - can you share some links to that? I’d love to read up on it.
Your program is simply too COERCIVE. So I wouldn’t have to farm. I’d PAY for the privilege of not farming! Since when should I be forced to pay for NOT taking an action I am not capable of taking?
I am against property tax. It is a violation of the Constitution and of the federal land patent laws. It violates the spirit of Summa Corp. v California and Leo Sheep Company v. US. Excise taxes were the choice of our founders. These are the best taxes. When you jump to conclusions about my views, you also jump to conclusions about whether I think in black and white, or about my thinking in general.
Any time you tax one group to subsidize another, that is theft-by-government. That is not the government’s job, and it is unconstitutional. Taxation should never be used to shape society or the behavior of the individual. What you and many others probably don’t understand about the rich is that the rich are the source of our jobs. Every dollar you tax a rich person is a dollar not spent hiring someone, either directly or indirectly. It doesn’t matter HOW the rich use their money. It provides jobs. This is all based on a philosophy of greed and envy. And that is covetousness, and covetousness is a sin. The rich will always find a way to avoid taxes. The middle class doesn’t have the means to do this. Any time you try to tax the rich, it is the middle class that pays the price.
I know enough about blockchain to know the following: it depends heavily on computer power, which means it cannot be trusted. It uses inordinate amounts of electricity at a time when this poses a real problem for the grid, and fuels the enmity between those in favor of fossil fuels and those in favor of “renewable” energy. Computers can be hacked. I eat organic as much as possible, which means mostly. But I do not support your idea because of its coercive nature.
Sorry, but you don’t get to define tyranny. I wouldn’t take a gun, point it in the face of my neighbor, and demand he hand over his wallet. Any time GOVERNMENT does this, and gives the money to another private individual, they’re doing YOUR DIRTY WORK FOR YOU. There is no difference. The individual who worked hard to earn that money was still robbed.
Concentrate on stopping the power of the people who are buying up real estate and driving up the “value” of homes. And turning homes into rental property. Just make it illegal for powerful entities to buy up homes for investment. And prosecute. Concentrate on stopping international tyrants. Concentrate on stopping the subsidies and government support of Big Ag and Big pHarma. If Big Ag and Big pHarma lack power, then voluntary efforts of organic farmers will spread. Better to let people specialize in what they are good at doing. Let organic farmers farm. Let everyone else contribute where their own talents lie. Personal wealth and well being improved phenomenally when we moved from being an agricultural society to one with many different aspects, including industry. Returning everyone to agrarian living is a step backward. If people want to raise truck gardens, more power to them. But don’t penalize people for not choosing to do so, and don’t use us to subsidize people who do. It is sufficient that I will buy their produce. That will give them the compensation they truly deserve. Let the free market operate.
- A higher standard of living for American citizens benefits everyone.
- You don’t get to define tyranny either - I could argue it’s not tyranny because nobody is forcing you to stay in America. If you don’t want to contribute, you are free to leave and go to another country where you wouldn’t pay this small increase in real estate tax. Croatia, Mauritania, & the United Arab Emirates all have no income tax, this policy wouldn’t prevent you from moving to any of those places.
- If blockchain wasn’t secure, Bitcoin wouldn’t exist. It’s literally the most secure ledger available. If you’re not educated on how it works, with all due respect, your opinion on it doesn’t hold much weight because you simply don’t understand it.
- The plan does include a ban on hedge funds and PE firms buying up homes.
- This plan doesn’t stop organic farmers from starting up operations, it complements the growth of the organic food market - it doesn’t take it over.
- This doesn’t return everyone to agrarian living because you would still owe money on your mortgage, and you wouldn’t be making enough money on your farm to cover your mortgage. This is an opportunity for remote workers, people willing to commute to nearby urban areas, and people who are able to start businesses or find jobs in rural areas, or who want to work in the gig economy. The money made off the farm wouldn’t be enough to pay your mortgage.
Hope this clarifies your concerns!
You don’t create a higher standard of living for Peter when you rob Peter to pay Paul. Your scheme is exactly that. Any subsidy for those who garden is paid for by taxpayers. And you don’t get to say what happens in America. If you want to implement your hare-brained scheme, how about YOU emigrate! I much prefer the status quo until someone comes along with a scheme that actually works and not at the expense of some people. Just shutting down Big pHarma and Big Ag would go a long ways, without any of the things you propose.
You need to stop second-guessing me and telling me what I think. You are clueless.
Believe me, I understand Bitcoin well enough, and Blockchain. It’s all a fiction. Your wealth depends on what happens in a computer whose location you don’t even know, which can be hacked by anyone or even set up so that you will lose your funds (and I know people who lost their funds, by the way). It’s like storing your food in New York, and when transportation breaks down, you cannot get it shipped to you in California. And those cryptocurrencies STEAL other people’s systems. I had my own web sites hacked and replaced who knows how many times so they could use my servers to “mine”. We finally set it up so that these hackers no longer had access to my sites at all. Not even to view them. The energy required to “mine” Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is a serious drain on the grid. If you do not understand what it is costing ALL of us for this system to exist, then I obviously know more about the system than you do. Cryptocurrencies are a pyramid scheme. The founders and early adopters made a mint. Everyone else will lose.
I am aware of your ban. Given the coercive and theft nature of your proposal generally, it is little consolation. And do you remember when income tax was supposed to take only 1% of the income of only the very rich? What’s this little bit of increase in property tax? Property tax already is highway robbery. You think I should agree to “just a little bit” more? Do you really think I should just roll over and play dead concerning a proposal that would rob me even more? (By the way, I never had a mortgage. We built as we had funds.) Why would I want to help pay for someone else’s mortgage when he can derive income from me buying his produce?
Praying that you are right about that sir 
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We need a society and an economy built on great ideas. It’s not optional, it’s foundational!
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Agreed! Thanks for taking the time to check the policy out!
Paul isn’t giving anything back to Peter. I’ve already explained that you do in fact get a return on your investment in this system through increased access to organic food.
You clearly don’t understand blockchain because if you did, you would know the nodes aren’t held on one computer - it’s a distributed ledger held on hundreds of thousands of nodes across the network, so there is no centralized risk, as you just described.
That’s literally the most basic concept about blockchain - it’s decentralized.
Hah! YOU don’t know anything about me and what I understand. I know very well that the nodes aren’t held on one computer. My own web sites were repeatedly hacked and replaced with nodes. But it only takes an action on ONE computer to destroy a person’s account, IN SPITE OF THAT FACT. One of the evil things about cryptocurrency and blockchain is that it DOES hack web sites to make nodes.
An investment is not the same thing as being taxed. Effectively the providing of help with mortgages for growers but those who cannot grow is a tax. We are subsidizing the growers. FYI, subsidies of Big Ag is what got us into this mess. What makes you think subsidizing organic growers and farmers won’t eventually corrupt them as well? Follow the money. People who sell organic produce will be rewarded from their sales. There is no need to subsidize them. And it is COMPULSORY that they get rewarded while the rest of us are left without help. It is the COMPULSORY GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT that is most detrimental. Since when has government ever done anything right? Private activity can encourage the spread of truck farms and gardens. Government should leave it strictly alone. Remove the zoning and building codes that prohibit produce gardens, let private entities spread knowledge of how to do the gardening, and keep government incentives out of it. People who want to do this will benefit and will do it voluntarily, and they don’t have to worry about losing out because they cannot keep doing it.