197. Capturing Land Values via Auctions: Gesell's Idea of Socializing Rent

For today's episode, Cameron Sajedi considers how auctions might help communities determine land values and return socially created rent to the public. Drawing on the ideas of Silvio Gesell, Henry George, and the economist William Vickrey, he introduces the logic behind Vickrey-Clarke-Groves auctions and asks whether market-based bidding could improve upon conventional land assessment. Through examples from Detroit to Anguilla, the conversation explores land taxation, publicly owned leaseholds, and the use of simulations to test different policies before putting them into practice.

Cameron Sajedi is a scientist and systems architect with a background in geoscience, engineering, and financial modeling. His work brings together location data, decentralized technology, and alternative monetary systems.

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