Harbergeorgism: Sustainable Economic Development for the Web3 Era

Speaker 1

Bernardo is a business administration and accounting graduate from Lisbon Polytechnic Institute and holds a specialization in business analytics. Galvanized by his interest in economics, technology, and culture, Barnardo has recently developed an economic theory called harbor Georgism. that leverages prior contributions in economics in novel ways to offer solutions, with Web3 as intermediary, on how to sustainably develop the new digital era. and ultimately improve the physical world as well. He currently volunteers as a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation. Bernardo.

Bernardo Vicente

So thank you very much, Carl, first of all, for the invitation to speak before this tremendously well-accomplished audience. It’s a great honor to be here. And I’ll try to make the presentation as interactive as possible since we are late in the day.

Bernardo Vicente

So Harbor Georgism. So yeah, this has been an economic theory that I’ve developed, an aggregate economic theory that I’ve developed. which is inspired in two prior contributions in economics, which are Georgism and Harburger taxation. And um and uh and uh with the ultimate mot motif of uh of uh um you know the the ultimate motif of uh on uh s sorry, uh of using these these two theories in uh in novel ways to like potentiate um development in the physical world.

Bernardo Vicente

And just as a little preface, this wasn’t the original idea at all. Like a few months ago, I was hearing, like all of you were, like hearing all this buzz around like NFTs and metaverse. And these kinds of concepts. And I was just thinking what was the teleology behind this, like what was the purpose, what was the utility of this. And I was getting kind of worried because it uh s seemed like ju j was seeming like uh just um a double down on the digital world. And I was thinking that uh since uh for the last few decades we’ve been uh kind of Lagging behind in the physical world, I was thinking like in a way of making this digital trend not stop there and make it physical. And so, yes, so

Bernardo Vicente

So that’s so it’s inspired in Georgia and Aboriginal taxation, starting with Georgism. Henry George was an American economist, and he developed this theory in the 19th century. and basically said that land is a natural unearned good with fixed supply and that taxing the value of land was the most logical and sensible source of public revenue. And basically the George’s tax was the land value tax. And he argued that we should abolish all the taxes that hinder production. and only have this one which would uh heavily um tax um landowners uh on the land. And uh he also argued that the this tax was more than enough to like uh the revenue collected from this tax was more than enough to fund public services and even to distribute UBI for the citizens. And his main conclusion was to reduce economic inequality and to foster economic progress with this kind of tax.

Bernardo Vicente

And the other theory is Harbour Goethex, also an American economist still living. And he said that this theory, like asset owners could self-assess the the value of of their assets and pay a peri periodic tax on that value. And at any point in time, anyone could buy that asset at that self-assessed price. And yeah. And the and the point of this was basically to make it a more efficient and swift allocation of resources. And as the last point says, like to put to improve like this balance between the investment and the locative efficiency of the thing. like to not hold out assets at a monopolistic price and to improve on the allocation and not only the investment and this would ultimately result in greater welfare gains.

Bernardo Vicente

And so basically both these theories, I think, are like actually Curtis from the Shar Cities Institute that alluded to earlier, I think that they will come in a new way in the future. There’s a possibility for them to come back and to be rethought in this new Web3 blockchain context.

Bernardo Vicente

And so uh um more focusing more on this uh web Web3 trend, like uh I think the blockchain w as uh created for new types of assets, goods. Basically the most famous ones we’ve all uh heard of, like uh DNF Ts are are tradable but non-fungible like a piece of art. The other one is the non-tradable fungible token, which basically could be a course which is non-tradable because we’re not going to buy courses from one another, but it’s fungible because many people could have taken the same course. Tradable, fungible tokens could be just cryptocurrencies which are tradable and fungible because there are many of the kind. And non-tradable, non-fungible could be like a passport, an unchained passport which non-tradable, we’re not gonna buy or sell passports from one another and it’s fun non-fungible too because uh it’s unique like a uh biometric uh data data test would also fall in this category.

Bernardo Vicente

On the Georgism piece, I think so it focuses on focuses on land. and therefore land is an NFT because it’s tradable, we can buy it from one another, but it’s not fungible because it’s unique. No square meter of land is the same as another.

Bernardo Vicente

As for har the harburger part, it’s assets in gener in general it’s like an ambiguous term, so it could fall, I guess, pretty much anywhere. I don’t I’m not saying that every picture of this falls under the asset category, but it that could could be changed. Uh and so yeah.

Bernardo Vicente

So following the the Harburger, I think by somewhere by the end of this decade, we’ll have six different types of assets. Uh it’s a centralized physi physical asset, so maybe just this microphone if I owned it, it would be mine. Centralized virtual asset, like just an asset on a web Web2 game. This decentralized physical one. would be one uh where um harbor tax uh tax w would be im uh implemented. Decentralized virtual, just like uh a tool on a uh Farmville game, uh GTA or something. decentralized ownership of a physical asset would be just the ownership of of a digital asset on a on a on a blockchain and I would own that on-chain ownership. And the last one would just be a mix of the prior two, would just be a proxy for the ownership of the physical one, and we would have it all also in the virtual.

Bernardo Vicente

For land, you know, the the last two types depend on how well how well like Elon and NASA do. Um but uh uh but the the the first three one uh th three ones are basically the same as the assets. And then the next three I think will fall in the category of metaverse, crypto city, and a mix of both, where we could do something like remotely or virtually, and the same thing would happen in real life. like operating a tractor remotely and the tractor would do that same job in a in a farm in real life.

Bernardo Vicente

And so, yeah, so just a little bit of a context to Crypto Cities and Metaverse. So I think the cultural timing and technology are in place to start advancements, as Curtis again has alluded to. And uh I think the rising interest in local governments also potentiated by COVID has um uh potentiated this and uh more widespread debate on on crypto ideas as two.

Bernardo Vicente

And here we have a tweet by the Mayor of Miami, Francis Fuarez, like uh this guy was uh uh suggesting how could we like um uh switch uh the these these initiatives from Silicon Valley to to Miami. And he was not uh ironic uh at all, not self-serv not self-serving. He said the l like how could he help and uh they’re really making uh advancements at this point there in Miami.

Bernardo Vicente

So yeah, so this is the certainly not a rough diagram. Of course, a real economy has a million other types of different transactions. But yeah, just a harbor jargon just flow of things, and we’ll get we’ll get into each and we’ll start with the with the Ciric coin ones. And the inner circle would be just the normal people could be also NFT investors and we will see why. Um so then yes, so the the first point is is more of an economic one and pardon.

Bernardo Vicente

And yes, so like we’ve seen uh on the Georgi’s piece, like uh creation of economic alignment could be the creation of of a of a city coin, and that city coin would um be paralleled to a number of different square meters of land or shares would be sort of of that NFT that the Citi coin holders could hold. And on the last two and the last two points are more like l i are more incentive incentive-wise. So encouragement of pro-social activities. could be just incentivizing a local business shopping or more effective waste management, for example, example. And the last one would just be like we see in the picture, like more pedestrian and environmentally friendly. and the contributing to a more pleasant city with the more efficient green public transport transportation.

Bernardo Vicente

On the DAO, yeah, uh j j j just to preface, like uh uh I I uh a DAO can be a million different things, but uh here is like the city government or government would be this piece. and the business could also be a DAO, but uh I just uh distinct them just just for the sake of clarification. And

Bernardo Vicente

So just for you to see, like um the both arrows that uh point to the DAO are are the Arbor Jordis tax like the Harburger and land value value tax and the DAO w the o output of the DAO would be like the public funding and the the U the UBI. And so the land value tax would allow the Dow to make a return on the investment in the public goods, since the the land value tax received would increase and um greater revenues would um be able to get a uh be extracted by the DAO. And also to generate revenue to dist distribute to the community by the UBI uh part. As for the Harburger tax, is the more or less as we’ve seen, it would benefit the community from the improved allocation of the assets from the fairer pricing structure. And uh here is is sort of a formula uh on the first member like the inputs and the last one outputs

Bernardo Vicente

Um and then I just picture like uh an unsuccessful scenario with where the the business would uh so I Yeah, so you know nothing particularly wrong with a place like this, but it’s just there’s a lot of vacant land. There’s a lot of potential of of potential to to to every uh a lot of things could could be developed in a place like this. And I argue that. And then I uh so as you’ve seen, like uh I hope you see well in the back.

Bernardo Vicente

Like the parts that are in gray are like the parts that wouldn’t work that are linked to the business side. That’s why it’s unsuccessful. And NFT investors could would like cook growth from the business and the business could like be working in in the beginning, but if if uh they fall behind on the if if if they they they start seeing like leg lagging revenues They would have to adjust their Harburger tax since it Darburger tax would be like would be like too high f for the revenue that the business was deriving and therefore they have to they would have to lower the valuation of the business And by lowering the valuation of a business, it becomes more propitious to other potential investors to buy that business. And they could try that, but if the keeps not working, like the business part fails. And the Citcoin holders like, well, this would have to be seen, but they would lose in this case on the invest the NFC investors would lose on this investment because they would crowdfund. but wouldn’t see like the royalty come back. And the Silicon holders would provide the land value tax to the DAO, but they wouldn’t see like rent coming back because the business has somewhat failed.

Bernardo Vicente

And um so so and now picture a successful scenario where everything like works, the business um everything l like works, the business sees sees progressively greater revenues. The Harburger tax is is is no problem uh because, you know, the business just just increases in revenue. So they would so they would j would just like um could progressively make greater re-evaluations on the business and keeping away like these potential buyers. And so the Arburger tax, as you see, is like meritocratic too. And yeah, we would have this sort of city that would be sort of developed and I think would be great f for every economic agent that we see on that diagram.

Bernardo Vicente

And just yes, some initiatives, some of them are using Harburger tax, others not, but there’s Citicoins, I think they have now projects in Miami, New York and Austin, Texas. And then as a speaker today, I don’t remember who, sorry, but they alluded to the CitiDAO, who bought like 40 acres of land in Wyoming to start out a blockchain city. And then on on the on the metaver metaverse side, it’s just uh that there are sand uh sandbox and this central land, which as of today are not using um any economic theory, but so I th I I I’m guessing that may change in the future.

Bernardo Vicente

So yeah, basically just to just to conclude, like I argue like the both these theories are like complementary in different ways. But one thing that unites them is is basically the purpose of them, which is like decentralization. And because Georgism decentralizes from the landlord would fall out of the scheme and would be like the land would be owned by the community and not the landlord. And basically the Harburger tax uh would be from a sort of monopoly to a community, w wouldn’t uh really d decentralize, but would make it sort of less less private because if a business is not doing that well the business owner would have to be sort of obligated to lower that reevaluation and make it more propitious for other people to buy it out.

Bernardo Vicente

And basically I do argue too that we do need some new for this Web3 era, we do need some new model of economics, of governance. we shouldn’t like mimetically extrapolate from the what we know in legacy cities or Web two realities and um just copy that. We we we should think uh anew of uh these new crypto cities and uh and these metaverse realities. And so I do hope that Harbor Georgism just does help on that front or some derivation thereof. And we could start envisioning how we could open open like the the physical frontier the f the physical frontier, which uh we’ve seen and I’m f a Western European by the way, so I do see this decline in the physical world too, which has been like degrading our society in all sorts of ways.

Bernardo Vicente

And so just to end, I would like to end maybe in just a theological point. I found these two quotes that are like, I think adequate t to the event tonight and since the t today and the since the concept concept of Mormon transhumanism is so present with us today. Like I started reading, like, do not be confirmed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. And I do argue that if we work toward this renewal, toward this new state of beginning, God has previously and will again create the heavens and the earth. So, thank you.