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I don't understand why we can't just let the market decide which businesses make sense based on their revenue vs. leasing the land. Presumably if car washes are so profitable it's because consumers want to use them, so why are we artificially restricting their expansion? It also provides a free subsidy to existing car washes who get to charge higher prices than they would in a competitive market. Restrictions to entering trade generally hurt consumers.

FWIW, I've used a paid car wash <10x in my life so it doesn't matter that much to me.



Imagine, for a moment, an even freer market.

Someone opens a car wash in a central area. They self-declare a tax value for the land and its improvements.

We also allow that anyone can forcibly buy that land by paying that same self-declared tax value + X%. The sale can't be blocked.

We've ended the monopoly of land ownership, and imposed a free market on land purchasing.

Car washes that are a waste of the land they are placed on will get bought out and converted to other uses. If they are not, they will remain.

This, by the way, is very close to a land value tax, and all we've done is force a fair appraisal of potential value for a parcel, rather than the current, possibly underutilized value.


Forcing the sale of private property to anyone who can fork up the cash sounds absolutely ripe for abuse.


Yes, real life is always more complicated.

It would be necessary to block sales of a personal or vindictive nature, so the local rich guy can't force their enemies out of their homes.

And have robust antitrust. And correct the perverse incentive towards poison pills, such as polluting the land to make it undesirable.


Just make X% large enough.

If Musk wants to get pissed at me and buy my house for $3m I'll be there to sell.




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