Changing Conceptions of Property
Jonjo Brady Consider the simple act of walking your dogs over a patch of fields. Have you ever considered who owns those fields or whether you even have the right to walk across them, what manner of law and justification enacts this right; a public right of way, a private licence meaning permission agreed with […]
The Physiocrats and the Meaning of their Single Tax
The Physiocracy of Henry George By L. S. Anderson In chapter 4 of book VIII of Progress and Poverty (1879), Henry George singled out the school of Physiocracy for particular praise. In their doctrine of the single tax (l’impôt unique) he saw nothing less than an anticipation of his own idea. He wrote: …there has […]
The Planning System
Andrew Purves The Planning System in the United Kingdom continues to be a political football, as it tries to fulfil a number of competing and conflicting objectives. Given that Planning is now a devolved power, I will focus primarily on Planning in England, although the tensions in some of these broad themes can also be […]
Letter from the Editor
A suggestion often put forward is that the rent collected as land tax should be shared as a basic income for all citizens. Tax for government obligations will still need to be put on production and on wages, with all the distortions that brings. Such a scheme seems to its proponents a just way for […]
Nature and the Common Good
Nature and the Common Good By Joseph Milne Modern economic thinking generally takes for granted an unavoidable conflict between the common good and the individual good, as though the two ends were somehow incompatible. Thus the interest of the employee is seen as in conflict with the interest of the employer, the customer’s in conflict […]
Folk-Memory and Land: The Diggers and the Anglo-Saxon Land Tradition
Folk-Memory and Land: The Diggers and the Anglo-Saxon Land Tradition By Edward Barnett The law condemns the man or woman who steals the goose off the common but lets the greater villain loose who steals the common from the goose I first became interested in the question of land in my teenage years. My sixth […]
Letter from the Editor on the COVID-19 Pandemic
Letter from the Editor on the COVID-19 Pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic has led many ordinary people to reconsider ideas of society we have long taken for granted. While the lockdown and social isolation has limited our usual interaction, it has brought about a sharp increase in community interaction. Neighbours have come to know one another […]
Economics and the Land Ethic
Economics and the Land Ethic By Joseph Milne HGF Open Day Talk September 2019 Let me begin with a quotation from Aldo Leopold: There is as yet no ethic dealing with man’s relation to the land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it. Land…is still property. The land relation is still […]
The Green New Deal, Georgism & “The Truth of Socialism”
The Green New Deal, Georgism & “The Truth of Socialism” By Simon McKenna The only way to protect ourselves from the ecological crisis is to make significant changes to the way we currently live. The Green New Deal is a viable plan to make these changes. New energy sources would be developed, housing would […]