Physiocrats
On Thursday, 20 June, Melvin Bragg’s radio programme In Our Time was about the Physiocrats. It will be available indefinitely on the Internet.
Göteborg to have congestion charge referendum
Sweden’s second largest city, Göteborg, introduced a congestion charge at the beginning of the year. This is a “cordon” scheme, with charges being incurred when vehicles pass one of the toll points around the city, The dual aims are to reduce congestion and raise revenue for the West Sweden package, a collection of road and rail infrastructure projects. The most expensive item...
Margaret Thatcher’s sour legacy
Margaret Thatcher will be best remembered for having said that “There’s no such thing as society”. This was taken out of context. Her exact words, I am told were “There’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people and people must look after themselves first. It’s...
A church for the poor?
New popes always bring a new direction to the Catholic church. It is over 120 years since the first of the Social Teaching encyclicals, Rerum Novarum, was issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891. This was interpreted as, amongst other things, an assertion of the rights of both workers and property owners, and, importantly from our perspective, a condemnation of land value taxation. The latter led to the...
Home ownerism on steroids – 2
They own land, give them money.
Home ownerism on steroids – 1
Budget boosts house builders’ share prices.
Office cleaner finds budget draft sensation
Our sleuth, a Latvian woman who works for a firm of contract cleaners, has been keeping a low profile of late, but her patience paid off when she discovered what appears to be a draft of the budget speech. It appears that the Chancellor has more courage than we have given him credit for and that Land Value Taxation will be the centre of his policy to get growth back into the economy. We will listen...
Neoliberalism’s blind spot
Nyliberalismens blinda fläck
New Swedish commuter train to boost land values
The new commuter train service between Göteborg, Sweden’s second city, and Älvängen commenced last week. With new stations serving a suburban area which has previously had to rely on bus services, it will make commuting more attractive and open up new development opportunities. The scheme is part of a big infrastructure project which has involved the rebuilding of the route to Trollhättan,...