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As regular readers of my stuff will know, I’m of the view that a society should be designed around direct democracy and very low levels of land value tax (LVT), what Milton Friedman called “the least bad tax”. I may dream of Ancapistan, a land of no government, but the reality is that taxation of some kind, even if it be voluntary, is inevitable. There has never been a civilisation without taxation.

Ideally, land value tax would replace ALL other taxes. However, if you offered me LVT in the UK and all other taxes, income tax especially, slashed to 10, 15 or even 20%, I’d bite your hand off.

My friends in the countryside hate the idea, and I get angry messages about it, but the reality is that it is the owners of prime city centre real estate, the likes of the Crown, the Grosvenor Estate, major institutions and so on, who would bear the brunt, not ordinary homeowners or someone with 10 acres of field with no planning permission. (In my book Daylight Robbery, I argue for location value tax - it’s the same as land value tax, but I use the word “location” because the location of the land - ie city centres - is more important than the actual amount of land).

In any case, LVT is not going to happen here in the UK. Introducing a major new tax is too big an undertaking. It’s easier for politicians to raise and lower the taxes they already impose, and tinker round the edges of the existing system. LVT would be a whopping vote-loser in a nation whose primary concept of wealth is the value of their house. Just explaining it, never mind getting it across the line, is hard enough. (If you want an explainer, by the way, there is one here and another here).

Anyway this is all pre-amble, and I’m not here today to discuss the merits - or lack thereof - of LVT. For the purposes of this blog, just take my word that LVT keeps the relationship between ruler and citizen, between governor and governed, in healthy, transparent check. With LVT you would pay fewer taxes and lower levels of tax - ie less tax overall.

So I’ve been trying to come up with a politically possible means by which

* LVT can be implemented and shown in practice to work

* Beautiful housing can be made affordable to ordinary people without collapsing the housing market or having to reform the fiat money system

* Corporations, particularly crony capitalist building companies, planners, regulators and government are kept out of it, and people can be left to their own ingenious devices

And, by George, I think I’ve got it.

Here’s my idea. I stress: it is just an idea I am working through so there are bound to be flaws. I’d be grateful for any comments, pointers, thoughts, statistics, data, and so on.

Water Location Value Tax

Summary:

Today’s unaffordable housing is a consequence of both our system of planning and our system of money. They have conspired. But wholesale reform to either as good as politically impossible. With Britain’s over-leverage to housing, the financial repercussions of markedly lower house prices are politically intolerable.

Instead we propose to bypass the housing market altogether with an initiative to re-populate the underused rivers, keys, docks and canals of Britain with houseboats, barges and floating homes.

Local authorities and the land registry will determine who “owns” the water and the land beside it (most water is nationally owned). That which is not needed for transportation (eg the middle of rivers) will be parcelled off into small plots to be sold to individual owners – not corporate entities – on which they can then build or buy, then moor floating homes and other e