Im pretty fervently anti-Georgist, so it is hard for me to relate.
In my moral-political framework use taxes are superior to income taxes which are superior to wealth taxes. In my mind, any just theory taxation is based payment to the state for state services provided.
Use taxes are best because there is a clear quid pro quo, it enables consent (via using the service or not), and can be leveed reasonably proportional to use costs.
Income taxes are next, because they can be framed as a use of the public market space and institutions. Again, there there is a clear quid pro quo, and people can choose to work more or less, and pay more or less taxes.
Wealth taxes are worst because there is no quid pro quo or consent. The taxed gets no new exchange for the payment.
I think solar tax is even worse than this, because there is no underlying profit or wealth. Im not making money with solar, just losing money more slowly.
I think this is equivalent to sending a collector through the serfs to collect taxes for breathing the kings air. The kind didnt make the air any more than the state made the sun.
With respect to Georgism, I think it was amoral to begin with, and economically outdated today. Simply put, a significant portion of value today does not arise from the land. The material inputs for some code are trivial, but that code created may be worth more than a thousand acres of farmland. The material inputs to make a billion dollar stock trade are a few watts to send electrons down a wire.
People typically come up with some moral justification from taxes that happens to align with their lifestyle not being taxed particularly heavily and someone else picking up the tab.
The facts on the ground are that if California spends a billion dollars, it is either going to need to get someone to donate a billion dollars - realistically by deception - or raise a billion dollars in taxes. If the existing taxes don't cover the spending then there will need to be new taxes that do.
I'm more than happy to agree that a sun tax is like serfs paying tax for breathing the kings air. But any tax is equivalent to a serf breathing the kings air - the state didn't put in anywhere near the level of support that it is taking away. The people who control the army point out that their army can get the taxpayer, nobody else will save them and ergo they must donate money to the cause. When taxes are involved inevitably the people paying the most tax will have moral objections to picking up the heaviest burden and their moral sensibilities will be overruled by suspiciously more moral and less taxed individuals [0].
The people who pay for the spending aren't doing it willingly, or there wouldn't be any need to engage the tax system to make them pay. Pretending that there is some sort of consent or a quid pro quo involved is just that - pretence. If the taxpayers called your morals, in practice, it will be discovered that the governing bodies were bluffing and some other method of extracting money will be found that is then decided to be most moral by people not paying for the spending. And from that frame there is no difference between taxing solar panels or taxing any other form of wealth generation - except that the people with solar panels are already getting a free ride from the sun so it is a less economically distortive burden for the taxman to take a cut.
I suppose to put it in short, we will have to agree to disagree.
[0] Although there would be a really interesting to run an experiment where votes in an election were proportionally weighted by how much tax the voter had paid in the last financial year.
I think it has been confusing how you bounce between your personal views of moral justice and cynical description of the word as it is.
While I do share some of your cynicism about the extractive nature of the state and public, I think is also clear that norms exist and the public does push back. After all, we dont currently have a tax on breathing the air or home use solar generation.
The state and proponents of these measures go to great lengths to justify or obfuscate purely extractive taxes, which again speaks to public moral sentiment. The idea of might makes right with respect to taxation and state power is still transgressive.
In my moral-political framework use taxes are superior to income taxes which are superior to wealth taxes. In my mind, any just theory taxation is based payment to the state for state services provided.
Use taxes are best because there is a clear quid pro quo, it enables consent (via using the service or not), and can be leveed reasonably proportional to use costs.
Income taxes are next, because they can be framed as a use of the public market space and institutions. Again, there there is a clear quid pro quo, and people can choose to work more or less, and pay more or less taxes.
Wealth taxes are worst because there is no quid pro quo or consent. The taxed gets no new exchange for the payment.
I think solar tax is even worse than this, because there is no underlying profit or wealth. Im not making money with solar, just losing money more slowly.
I think this is equivalent to sending a collector through the serfs to collect taxes for breathing the kings air. The kind didnt make the air any more than the state made the sun.
With respect to Georgism, I think it was amoral to begin with, and economically outdated today. Simply put, a significant portion of value today does not arise from the land. The material inputs for some code are trivial, but that code created may be worth more than a thousand acres of farmland. The material inputs to make a billion dollar stock trade are a few watts to send electrons down a wire.