Introduction

In the 1880’s Henry George published a book, Progress and Poverty, which put forward a comprehensive argument about the root causes of poverty. He then presented a remedy called the one-tax. You can find his book free online in both text and audio form. The modernized and abridged version is recommended.

Our goal with Henry George Island is to test the one-tax idea using a virtual world. All the needed ingredients; land, labor, and wealth, exist in various forms in the opensim virtual worlds accessible from http://osgrid.org.

SecondLife, a very popular virtual world that opensim was based on, tried to use land speculation to fuel growth but while SecondLife land values did surge they eventually dropped. If you visit Second Life you will find some vibrant areas full of activity but also many many areas with no one around. Could applying the one-tax model to our virtual island create a vibrant space where people can explore, create and converse? The only way to know is to try.

This experiment will be implemented on a piece of virtual land in the OSGrid project.

Henry George Island
Figure 1. The beginning

The land where we will carry out this experiment is called Henry George Island. It is available to visit now. Create an account at http://osgrid.org, follow their instructions to install a virtual world viewer, log in, learn to navigate the 3D world and when ready type Kiatoa into the address bar and hit enter. This will teleport you to Henry George Island in the KiaToa region. There are usually some lots available for $0. Please consider joining us in this experiment, snag a piece of land and have fun doing something with it.

License
Copyright 2020, Matthew Welland. All rights reserved.
Credits

Thanks go to the Progress.org organization for their continued efforts to promote the ideas of Henry George and to make the real world a better place for all.

Method Overview

Apply a land tax to lots by subdividing the land of a virtual island. Adjust tax rates such that occupancy is kept high. Records of what price and when land was purchased are kept.

Expected Results

Indicators that the one-tax may be working:

  1. High occupancy (> 80% or so) with some sections non-zero land tax.

  2. Varying tax rate (normalized for area) with some sensible correlation to desirability. E.g. coastal land will likely be more expensive than inland lots.

What Can You Do With Land on Henry George Island?

Enthusiasts for VR and Virtual Worlds tend to use phrases like "limited only by your imagination". But of course virtual Worlds are limited. That said, there are interesting, useful and fun things that you can do with a lot on Henry George Island. Here are some ideas:

  1. Showcase your art, games, projects, or ideas by making a building or kiosk. Using scripting you can animate, display information dynamically, play music and link to websites. You can add an NPC (no player character) to add interest or set atmosphere.

  2. Learn to build and create in a 3D world.

  3. Run a virtual business for fun or maybe even profit. Live music and games are popular.

  4. Create spaces for gatherings. How about a conference floor for virtual display and demo of vendor products?

  5. Showcase your talents by creating a beautiful, entrancing or interesting space for others to enjoy.

How To Get a Lot?

Warning: This is more complicated than we’d like. Unfortunately you just cannot use the in-world method to buy land, you will have to follow the following procedure:

  1. Log into OSGrid and teleport to KiaToa. You will arrive at Henry George Island after a few seconds.

  2. Find lots by showing property lines; select World menu → show more → property lines.

  3. Look around and select a lot that you like. Find the lot on the map below and note the lot id (e.g. A1). NOTE: There are no id markers on the land in-world.

  4. Send an email to henrygeorgeisland@gmail.com with the marker id and your avatar full name and if available the land will be sold to you for $0. You will get an email reply that the lot is ready for you to buy for $0.00

  5. Return to the island and go to the lot you selected, click on the lot and select "Buy this land". The land will then be yours.

  6. You can now terraform your land (reshape it) and change various settings such as ban other users from visiting.

  7. Teleport around the OSGrid regions and click on everything you see - if the "Copy" option is highlighted you can copy that item, go back to your land and drag the item from your inventory to the land.

  8. You can find trees, houses, cars etc. and arrange on your land as you see fit.

  9. Taxes are currently $0/month for most lots and should stay at $0 for a few months, maybe longer.

Property lines
Figure 2. Property Lines

Available Lots

Size (sq m) Status Owner Tax US$/Month Price

A1

704

available

n/a

$0.00

$0.00

B8

1120

available

n/a

$1.10

$0.00

B9

1440

publicpark

matt well

$0.90

$0.00

C1

3328

publicpark

matt well

$1.40

$0.00

C3

2128

sold

envteam

$1.20

$0.00

D1

1152

available

n/a

$0.60

$0.00

D5

1408

available

n/a

$0.80

$0.00

A2

available

n/a

$0.00

$0.00

A3

available

n/a

$0.00

$0.00

A4

available

n/a

$0.00

$0.00

A5

available

n/a

$0.00

$0.00

A6

sold

Alle Gra

$0.00

$0.00

A7

sold

Doctor Indy

$0.00

$0.00

A8

sold

Youca Godel

$0.00

$0.00

B1

sold

Aya cat2

$0.00

$0.00

B2

available

n/a

$0.00

$0.00

B3

sold

Viv TheOne

$0.00

$0.00

B4

sold

Queen bee

$0.00

$0.00

B5

available

n/a

$0.00

$0.00

B6

available

n/a

$0.00

$0.00

B7

available

n/a

$0.00

$0.00

C2

sold

Matt Altwell

$1.50

$0.00

C4

sold

moontumbo moon

$0.00

$0.00

C5

sold

Matt Altwell

$0.00

$0.00

C6

sold

asakr civon

$0.00

$0.00

C7

sold

Xiija Anzu

$0.00

$0.00

C8

sold

Doctor Dave

$0.00

$0.00

D2

available

n/a

$0.00

$0.00

D3

available

n/a

$0.00

$0.00

D4

available

n/a

$0.00

$0.00

D6

available

n/a

$0.00

$0.00

Current Policy

Land Tax

Tax rates for most lots start at $0.00 and will be due at the end of the month. Payment can be made in advance for up to three months. Values will be assessed monthly and taxes adjusted accordingly. Note that it is quite possible that values will never go above zero. This is an experiment!

Discussion

Proceeds above cost

If land taxes revenues exceed hosting costs the remaining revenue will be distributed as donations to OSGrid, Progress.org and also to content producers. Currently we are making a $5/month donation to OSGrid.

Land Tax Funded Content Generation

If you have content you are willing to make freely available you may be able to get credits for land taxes on Henry George Island by following these steps:

  1. Send an email to henrygeorgeisland@gmail.com with either:

    1. A brief description and a picture of the item

    2. or a request to meet in-world to show the item

  2. Include a credit amount you’d like to receive.

  3. If we agree on the amount then you can post your content at the dropbox at Freebie Stores. The one-time credit will be granted when the item shows up on the shelves of the Freebie Mall.

Freebie Stores

Awesome Freebie Stores! shopping clothes avatars houses furniture and more @ http://hg.osgrid.org:80

Note Do NOT submit items you do not have the right to make freely available.
Note The credit can ONLY be applied toward the land tax on a lot on Henry George Island and has no other value.
Note Content published into the OSGrid Freebie Mall can be copied by savvy users to Second Life. Be sure you are comfortable with this. You may wish to also simultaneously sell the items in SL so that you get credit for your efforts in that world - giving the items away can still give you name recognition.
Note Any and all creativity is valued, please try contributing even if you consider yourself a beginner. Everyone must start somewhere. There are lots of great tutorials on how to create, search using Google for "Second life content creation".

Money

Opensim based currency is not supported. The Dreamlandmetaverse payment system is available for making micro-payments for land tax using paypal.

Index