From another perspective, some of those downsides could be considered behavior as intended.
Basically, in a tax-less scheme, there's a strong financial advantage to just showing up first.
There is an absolutely limited supply of land, and society has an incentive to make sure this limited supply is being used effectively to produce wealth. Society also has an incentive to make sure that everyone is housed, financially stable, and healthy. These are competing concerns.
Say there were no property taxes, so the only incentive for selling land would be a high enough price. Your hypothetical family would be sitting on prime Napa farmland, not producing wine, and society would have that much less wine to drink.
An aspiring young wine-grower might like to purchase this land, and could even trade a bit of land of his own. If the original family doesn't want to move, though, the aspiring wine-grower is out of luck.
A property taxation scheme encourages people to use their land to produce wealth, either by producing it directly, a la farmland, or by housing people and keeping them healthy, such as houses or apartment buildings.
In a tax-less scheme, there's a strong advantage to just showing up first. The lucky few to first colonize Napa can maintain control of the land indefinitely, and younger generations and immigrants are at a financial disadvantage, as they won't have the option of owning their own land, but they'll be in a marketplace competing with persons who don't have to worry about housing at all.
Basically, in a tax-less scheme, there's a strong financial advantage to just showing up first.
There is an absolutely limited supply of land, and society has an incentive to make sure this limited supply is being used effectively to produce wealth. Society also has an incentive to make sure that everyone is housed, financially stable, and healthy. These are competing concerns.
Say there were no property taxes, so the only incentive for selling land would be a high enough price. Your hypothetical family would be sitting on prime Napa farmland, not producing wine, and society would have that much less wine to drink.
An aspiring young wine-grower might like to purchase this land, and could even trade a bit of land of his own. If the original family doesn't want to move, though, the aspiring wine-grower is out of luck.
A property taxation scheme encourages people to use their land to produce wealth, either by producing it directly, a la farmland, or by housing people and keeping them healthy, such as houses or apartment buildings.
In a tax-less scheme, there's a strong advantage to just showing up first. The lucky few to first colonize Napa can maintain control of the land indefinitely, and younger generations and immigrants are at a financial disadvantage, as they won't have the option of owning their own land, but they'll be in a marketplace competing with persons who don't have to worry about housing at all.