Adam Smith’s Canons of Taxation are not easily found on the internet in their raw form; they are usually someone or other’s interpretation. So, for reference, here they are in their original form, as made available by the Library of Economics and Liberty.

The latest (Spring 2014) edition of Land & Liberty has a collection of penetrating articles which go to the root of our current problems with the economy. The Idea of Property by Joseph Milne, an enquiry into the nature of property, traces the notion to its origins in the early seventeenth century. It demonstrates how the flawed analsyis of John Locke underpins contemporary ideas on property...

On Thursday, 20 June, Melvin Bragg’s radio programme In Our Time was about the Physiocrats. It will be available indefinitely on the Internet.

Article in Harper’s Magazine on the history of the game.

The Campaign, of course, has no view on the Monarchy, so this is a personal one. Monarchy and land are, however, intimately connected so there is every justification for discussing the subject here.

{jumi *6}{/jumi}Strategic analyst and historian Edward Luttwak discusses his important book on the history of the Byzantine Empire, the longest-lasting empire in human history. In passing, he mentions the role of its tax system in providing a stable source of revenue for public administration – and it turns out that the method used was classic LVT. The entire lecture is worth listening to...

If a land title is tracked back far enough, you will find a theft: enclosure of what was once common property. Or will you? Some, however, would argue that if you track it back far enough, you will find land that was discovered for the first time and therefore had no owner. This line of reasoning will hold up well enough as long it is accepted that land is not common property and can be owned...

The FT today has a collection of articles on how the middle classes are being squeezed as societies around the world are polarising into the very rich and the rest. This is precisely what the theories we are working from would predict. Monopoly, originally called The Landlord’s Game, was devised by our predecessors to demonstrate this. In most countries today, the Monopoly game is being played...

The hedges and walls characteristic of the English landscape are taken for granted but they are mostly of quite recent origin. Perhaps hedges and walls on the ground give rise to hedges and walls in the mind. Or perhaps it is the other way round. Before enclosure, the landscape would have looked something like that in the picture. How the situation came about is described here. The article, in the...

In an article in the FT last Wednesday, economist John Kay corrected the widespread misconception that the Law of Rent was discovered by David Ricardo, noting that the phenomenon was first noted by a Scottish gentleman farmer and scholar, James Anderson, 50 years earlier. John Kay then went on, as many economists do, to extend the term “economic rent” to the rent of talent, referring...