Don’t Dismiss Land—It’s Still at the Root of Inequality
In discussions of inequality, it has become common—almost instinctive—to point to capital as the main driver of wealth concentration. And there’s good reason for that. The modern economy is awash in capital: financial instruments, productive machinery, intellectual property, and digital platforms. So when someone says that focusing on land is outdated, even simplistic, I understand the impulse. After all, we’re no longer in an agricultural age. The economy has evolved. But the importance of land has not disappeared—it has simply changed form.
That was one of the surprising takeaways from a quiet academic skirmish between two economists a few years back: Thomas Piketty and Matthew Rognlie. Piketty, in his widely influential *Capital in the 21st Century*, argued that capital’s share of income is rising faster than growth, threatening to entrench inequality. [1] Rognlie, then a graduate student at MIT, offered a critical reply: yes, capital’s share is rising—but overwhelmingly due to *housing*, not industrial capital. [2]
Dig deeper into that claim, and it becomes clear that it’s not the buildings themselves driving returns—it’s the land underneath them. Land in dense urban areas appreciates not because of what the owner does, but because of the efforts and needs of the broader community. Infrastructure, job markets, schools, and amenities—all public goods—inflate private land values. This is classic economic rent: value that is unearned, and yet flows to those who hold title to location.
This is where Georgism still matters.
The 19th-century economist Henry George argued that we should distinguish between wealth created by labor and capital, and wealth created simply by owning what no one created: land. [3] He didn’t deny the importance of capital. In fact, his philosophy *requires* a healthy, thriving capital base—just one built on equal opportunity, not gatekept by land monopolies. His proposed solution—a land value tax—wasn’t about punishing ownership. It was about reclaiming for the public the unearned value that communities create together, but which accrues privately. [4]
Critics today might say this is old thinking. But the reality on the ground—skyrocketing housing costs, land banking, tech campuses sprawling over monopolized space—suggests the opposite. Whether in Silicon Valley or Metro Manila, it is *access to place*—to the right locations, to opportunity-rich environments—that determines who gets ahead. Capital follows land. Investments happen where access is secured. And when that access is locked behind speculative landholding, inequality deepens.
So no, land isn’t the *only* factor. But to say it’s no longer central is to misunderstand how wealth accumulates in the 21st century. A society serious about fairness must still confront the geography of privilege. If we ignore the land beneath our feet, we risk mistaking modern inequality as a failure of productivity, rather than a failure to share the value of the earth itself.
- Piketty, Thomas. *Capital in the 21st Century*. Harvard University Press, 2014.
- Rognlie, Matthew. “Deciphering the Rise in Wealth Inequality.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 2015.
- George, Henry. *Progress and Poverty*. 1879.
- Tideman, Nicolaus. “The Ethics of Taxation.” In: *Land and Taxation*, ed. Nicolaus Tideman. Shepheard-Walwyn, 2002.