Comment - Land Value Tax Campaign

Crap on stilts

Written on 26 January 2014. Posted in General.

I was recently asked if crap on stilts is wealth? It may be, but only if someone wants it. Putting the crap on stilts is a work of human labour, which is part of the qualification for falling into the category “wealth”, but the product must still satisfy someone’s desire. As crap is good fertiliser, this is the case, so yes, it probably is. Crap was at one time the subject of...

Pope Francis – whither Catholic Social Teaching?

Written on 15 January 2014. Posted in Religion.

Recent statements by Pope Francis have stirred up criticism and discussion of the attitudes of the Catholic church to poverty. In modern times, economic justice was first addressed in the Social Teaching documents Rerum Novarum, issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, Quadragesimo Anno of 1931, and subsequently. The trouble is the subject was addressed inadequately. To make matters worse, like most things...

Taking Mirlees forward

Written on 19 December 2013. Posted in Taxation.

The leading tax experts who conducted the Mirrlees Review came to the conclusion that Land Value Taxation is such a powerful idea, and one that has been so comprehensively ignored by governments, that the case for a thorough official effort to design a workable solution seems to be overwhelming. In particular, the report noted, significant adjustment costs would be merited if the inefficient and...

Pope Francis sloppy on economics

Written on 5 December 2013. Posted in Religion.

Evangelii Gaudium, the Pope’s first major publication, is an “exhortation” rather than an encyclical, so it does not carry the same weight. Which is just as well. The economic analysis is sloppy. It contains nothing of interest and offers no direction. Even Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum is better, for all its shortcomings. Why didn’t the Pope go back to the previous body...

Free is not free – Mark Wadsworth

Written on 4 December 2013. Posted in Home-Owner-Ism.

Well that’s not free, then is it? by Mark Wadsworth

Royal Mail privatisation or property giveaway?

Written on 4 December 2013. Posted in Economics.

Royal Mail had a large sorting office slap in the centre of Brighton. The building was put up in the 1930s and the work inside went on day and night. In the days when the mail went by rail, it was a good location, a couple of hundred yards from the station. But for those who lived nearby, it was a bad neighbour, since it generated a huge volume of traffic, often carelessly driven. In the late 1980s,...

The Cargo Cult of Money Reform

Written on 2 December 2013. Posted in Banking.

The topic of money reform lies outside our self-defined terms of reference. Our view is that the monetary and banking system are the way they are largely due to the fact that the rent of land is privately appropriated. “As long as the land monopoly is maintained, the few can take possession of what Nature free of charge has granted to everyone, and usury will penetrate the whole society,...

A thought for St Andrews’ Day

Written on 30 November 2013. Posted in Politics.

The Campaign does not have a view on Scottish independence. One of the factors behind this movement must surely be the sense that wealth is being sucked out of Scotland into the centre of power and government, which means London. This is occurring through the tax system by government, and through the extraction of rental value by the financial system. The same problems are experienced in the peripheral...

How should we be campaigning?

Written on 18 November 2013. Posted in General.

Most LVT campaigners are at some time tempted to believe that the reform we support is only just over the horizon. One more push, and we shall be there. The temptation seems to hit hardest at two points. The first is when we have “seen the cat”. Having spotted the elusive feline lurking in the branches, we find it difficult to appreciate that anyone else could miss seeing it. The other...

Humbug or ignorance?

Written on 18 November 2013. Posted in Taxation.

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) is urging George Osborne, in his Autumn Statement on December 5, to freeze business rates for the next two years. The business group wants the government to review and reform the business rates system by 2015, with a more “responsive and transparent” system enacted early in the next parliament. Is this humbug or pure ignorance? The BCC could say...

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