Fun fact: Monopoly was originally designed to advocate for Georgism. Back then (and even now to a significant extent), a lot of rich people would purchase and horde plots of land. Eventually, small private entrepreneurs and the government would develop the land the plot, thus raising its value. If there was a tenant living on that plot, then they would be forced to pay the landlord more in rent. Landlords would then use that extra money to horde more land and repeat the process. They were quite literally getting rich off of other (poor) people’s work and taxpayer dollars without contributing back to society.

Henry George, a progressive economist, said that the remedy to landlord exploitation was to tax the increased value of the land from the landlord and to give the generated revenue back to broader society. It’s sort of a like a property tax, except it directly punishes those who treats land like a commodity instead of a means to better society—whereas a property tax punishes those who develop the land instead of simply hoarding it. While Henry George believed the land value tax should replace all other taxes, many other prominent Georgists believed it could supplement a more broader, progressive economic structure.

Georgism used to be incredibly popular during America’s Progressive Era and was, in my opinion, a bigger threat to traditional capitalism than the socialist movement. It’s a shame it died down.