Glossary
The key ideas behind Unitism, defined in plain language — with links to the tools, guides, and book chapters where each one comes to life.
ATCOR (All Taxes Come Out of Rent)
The principle that cutting other taxes raises land rents — so rent could fund public life.
Capital
Wealth used to produce more wealth — tools, machines, and buildings made by human effort.
Citizens’ Dividend
An equal payment to everyone from shared land and resource revenue.
The Commons
Resources owned by no one and belonging to everyone — land, water, air, and more.
Deadweight Loss
The economic value destroyed when a tax discourages productive activity.
Land (Economic)
In economics, all natural resources and locations — not just soil, but everything not made by humans.
Economic Rent
Income received for controlling a scarce resource, beyond what’s needed to bring it into use.
Enclosure
The historical conversion of shared common land into private property.
Externality
A cost or benefit of an activity that falls on others who aren’t party to it.
Georgism
The school of economic thought, after Henry George, holding that land value belongs to all.
Ground Rent
The annual rental value of a piece of land, separate from any building on it.
Henry George
The 19th-century economist whose book Progress and Poverty popularized the land question.
Henry George Theorem
A result in economics showing public goods can be funded from the land rents they create.
Highest and Best Use
The most productive legal use of a site — the benchmark for its land value.
Imputed Rent
The rental value an owner-occupier effectively receives by not paying rent.
Labor
Human effort applied to production — one of the three factors of production.
Land Speculation
Holding land idle in the hope its price will rise, rather than putting it to use.
Land-Use Right
A secure, indefinite right to use a location — leased from the community and repriced each year — without owning its value.
Land Value Capture
Recovering for the public the rise in land value that public investment creates.
Land Value Tax (LVT)
A charge on the unimproved rental value of a location — never on the buildings or work upon it.
The Law of Rent
Ricardo’s principle that a site’s rent equals its advantage over the least productive land in use.
Location Value
The part of a property’s worth that comes from where it is, not from the building on it.
Margin of Production
The least productive land in use, which sets the baseline wage for the whole economy.
Monopoly
Exclusive control of a market that lets the holder extract value without producing it.
The Physiocrats
18th-century French economists who argued land should bear the sole tax.
Rent-Seeking
Gaining income by capturing existing wealth rather than creating new wealth.
Resource Rent
The unearned value of natural resources like minerals, oil, and spectrum.
The Single Tax
Henry George’s proposal to fund all government from a tax on land value alone.
Split-Rate Tax
A property tax that charges land at a higher rate than buildings.
Tragedy of the Commons
The overuse of an unmanaged shared resource by individuals acting in self-interest.
Unitism
The principle that the value of land and nature belongs to all, while the value you create belongs to you.
Universal Basic Income (UBI)
A regular, unconditional payment to every person, however it is funded.
Usufruct
The right to use and enjoy something one does not own.