by Maireid Sullivan 2020, updated 2021
Work in progress
Note: Please refresh cache when revisiting these pages
Index Introduction Part 1
- The Fourth Sector of the Economy: The Commons Part 2 - The Tragedy of the Commons Part 3 - What are The Commons? Part 4
- More perspectives Part 5
- Legendary contributors
"To avoid harm you must first learn how you harm yourself." Anon.
Introduction
The Global Commonsincludes the value of land and minerals, atmosphere, oceans, biodiversity, energy, culture, money systems, scientific knowledge, internet, etc. Economic Rent represents the wealth that comes from private access to or control of any of these resources:
Collection and distribution of 'Rent' -instead of taxing income and productivity-
is the administrative method recommended by Classical Political Economists.
"There are 36 billion acres of land on the earth ...more than half of which are arable or habitable or both." ..."The purpose of all the feudal land laws, derived from the fundamental principle of the feudal system, ...
was to prevent the population owning land."
- Kevin Cahill,Who Owns the World (UK 2006-US 2009), on Archive.org(Reviewed here + synopsis of Chapter 8, Ireland: Serfs not citizens)
“If you are presented with a natural justice argument made complex by the parties and their counsel, remember that common sense is the foundation of the rules and let your commonsense guide you to your answer.” – Hon John von Doussa, 10th March, 2005, President, Australian Human Rights Commission: 2003-2008
When we lost the commons we ‘learned’ to define wealth in economic terms, only: Endless growth and consumption, affluence and assets in a few hands.
We are capable of much more; developing abundance, inspiring creative expression, perfecting health, peace, freedom, justice, prosperity - with plenty of resources available for everyone.
In short, we need to 'review' our tax system so that we won't need to worry about how much people earn from their 'enterprises' - except for overseeing sustainability issues, when everyone pays "Economic Rent" for 'private' access to land.
Until just 1,000 years ago, the western rim of Europe was the last stand for an 'egalitarian' society of Celtic and indigenous origin - based on diplomatic laws governing land use, trade and travel: "The Law of Nations" (Vattel, 1758) - practiced over several thousands of years across all of Europe, until the Roman Empire began 'breaking' those laws around 250BC.
The final stroke, after several centuries of 'pressure' followed the first Separation of Church and State Law, under King Philip I of France (1052-1108) who was charged with "practice of simony on a huge scale" - allowing the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) to control "Church" rules around marriage and dogma.
The RCC's discovery of the 'traditional' western European system, whereby women on the western rim of the continent 'owned' land equally with men, led to the new ruling: Practicing traditional medicine is based on an un-orthodox "heretical" belief system, therefore, traditional "healers" could be arrested, without 'due process'. They were burned at the stake - their property confiscated - leading to new laws giving the RCC ownership of 'publicly owned' land; banning marriage for the disinherited who sought refuge in monasteries; with the introduction of new laws defining land ownership "in perpetuity" based on the argument that since the Church is the "body of Christ" it is immortal, therefore, can own land "in perpetuity" - according to the great French Medievalist Professor Georges Duby (1981, English translation 1983), "The Knight, The Lady and The Priest – The Making of Marriage in Medieval Europe":
Excerpt - A Short History of Economics:
Part 1, Medieval France: Separation of Church and State
Familiarity with the formation of medieval culture–the Middle Ages "feudal system" of politics that shaped daily life across Europe–will provide context for understanding the development of European economic thought: Georges Duby (1919-1996), professor of the history of medieval societies at the Collège de France, specialised in the social and economic history of the Middle Ages, and, has achieved iconic status as the most original and influential postwar historian of medieval society (pdf).
Professor Duby was a pioneer of the history of mentalities– Annales historians revel in facts: more facts than had ever been treated as history before (pdf) – the study of what people did, their value systems and how they imagined their world.
His most celebrated works are:
– The Knight, The Lady and The Priest– The Making of Marriage in Medieval Europe (1981/1983), "Duby explains the complicated machinations of the medieval churchman and the paterfamilias".
(Introduction shared HERE) – The Three Orders- Feudal Society Imagined (1982) (Les Trois Ordres ou L’imaginaire du féodalisme)– clergy, nobles, commoners: those who pray, those who fight, and those who work the land.
. . .
Of particular interest here is Professor Duby's documentation of the consequences of confiscation of land: methods introduced by the expansion of the role of the RCC’s Inquisition (circa 1231) for the suppression of heresy; extending RCC scope to classify traditional and non-Christian beliefs, including traditional healing arts, as heresy and witchcraft. Since women on the Western rim of Europe traditionally held rights to land ownership, an accusation of heresy or witchcraft allowed immediate confiscation of their property, before trial, and without rights to counsel. Countless numbers of men and women were burned at the stake over a period of five long centuries, ending in the 18th century. This time span includes an initial 250 years of concentrated "witch hunts" and land confiscation, and suppression of the lifestyle, laws, and medical practices of traditional Western European cultures. >>>more
"An interesting note about Garrett Hardin's 'Tragedy of the Commons' is that later he exchanged views with Robert V. Andelson [A Commons Without Tragedy, 1989], a philosophy professor at Auburn University. As a result of that exchange, Hardin agreed that the policy solution to the abuse of the commons is that offered by Henry George: the full taxation of the potential annual rental value of land and land-like assets (i.e. those with an inelastic supply and do not respond to the price mechanism in the way people do or capital goods do)."
– Edward J. Dodson, Director, School of Cooperative Individualism
2009
The Tragedy of the Commons DEBUNKED: Elinor Ostrom won the 2009 "Nobel Memorial Prize" in Economic Sciences, "for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons."
THE “NOBEL” PRIZE THAT WASN'T’ December, 2004
by Hazel Henderson (1933-2022) An unusual row erupted at the recent annual Nobel Prize awards. Peter Nobel, heir of Alfred Nobel, who endowed the Prizes added his voice to the growing outrage of many scientists at the confusion over The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Over the years since this $1 million prize was set up by Sweden’s central bank in 1969, it has become conflated with the real Nobel Prizes and is now often mis-labeled as the so-called “Nobel Memorial Prize". . . . many economists including those who had been awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize – actually mis-used mathematics by creating unrealistic models of social processes. >>> more
Interestingly, Professor Mason Gaffney explained, in The Corruption of Economics, 1994, Chapter 1, “Neo-classical Economics as a Stratagem against Henry George” (pdf), how most of what Hazel Henderson criticises came about as a reaction to the impact of the work and political activity of Henry George (1839-1897).
1. How Professor Elinor Ostrom Challenged Conventional Wisdom.
Nobel Prize in Economics, 2009: Elinor Ostrom - Facts
"As a political scientist Elinor Ostrom's research methods differed from how most economists work. Usually they start with a hypothesis, an assumption of reality, which is then put to the test. Elinor Ostrom started with an actual reality instead. She gathered information through field studies and then analyzed this material. In her book 'Governing the Commons' from 1990, she demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by user associations and that economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social organization. Her research had great impact amongst political scientists and economists."
2. Tragedy of the Commons R.I.P. "The biggest roadblock standing in the way of many people’s recognition of the importance of the commons
came tumbling down when Indiana University professor Elinor Ostrom won the 2009 Nobel Prize for economics.
Over many decades, Professor Ostrom has documented communities around the world that share common resources equitably and sustainably over the long term – debunking the myth that privatising natural resources is the only route to halting environmental degradation."
3.Commons Magazine
A
comprehensive report by Jay Walljasper, December 16, 2013 "Her honor debunked the belief that cooperation and collaboration lead to tragedy." Excerpt:
Ostrom’s Nobel Prize is a Milestone
for the Commons Movement A major roadblock standing in the way of many people’s recognition of the importance of the commons came tumbling down in 2009 when Indiana University professor Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize for economics.
Over many decades, Ostrom has documented how various communities manage common resources – grazing lands, forests, irrigation waters, fisheries equitably and sustainably – over the long term. The Nobel Committee’s recognition of her work effectively debunked popular theories about the Tragedy of the Commons, which hold that private property is the only effective method to prevent finite resources from being ruined or depleted.
Awarding the world’s most prestigious economics prize to a scholar who champions cooperative behavior greatly boosted the legitimacy of the commons as a framework for solving our social and environmental problems. ...
The Tragedy of the Commons refers to a scenario in which commonly held land is inevitably degraded because everyone in a community is allowed to graze livestock there. This parable was popularized by wildlife biologist Garrett Hardin in the late 1960s, and was embraced as a principle by the emerging environmental movement. But Ostrom’s research refutes this abstract concept once-and-for-all with the real life experience from places like Nepal, Kenya and Guatemala. ...
While right-wing thinkers scoffed at the possibility of resources being shared in a way that maintains the common good, arguing that private property is the only practical strategy to prevent this tragedy, Ostrom’s scholarship shows otherwise.
“What we have ignored is what citizens can do and the importance of real involvement of the people involved,”
she explained. >>> more
Why Global Poverty? Think Again-
A Companion Guide to the 2009 Film, "The End of Poverty"
by Clifford W. Cobb, Historian & Philippe Diaz, film director Global poverty did not just happen. "It began with military conquest, slavery, and colonization: the seizure of land, minerals, and forced labor. It has persisted until the present as a result of unfair debt, trade, and tax policies, which the rich nations of the North have imposed on the nations of the global South."
Conflating “Land” and “Property" - Land is a gift of nature.
- Property is a product of human labor.
"But the assumption that land
had always been treated
as private property is not true. On the contrary, the common right to land
has always been recognized as the primary right.
Private ownership has appeared only
as the result of usurpation —
that is, being seized by force." — Henry George (1879) Progress and Poverty, Ch 29.
(FREELY available in several formats)
The Moral Basis of Ownership
vs
The Moral Case for Property Rights
"What constitutes the rightful basis of property? What is it that enables a man justly to say of a thing, “It is mine!” From what springs the sentiment which acknowledges his exclusive right as against all the world? Is it not, primarily, the right of a man to himself, to the use of his own powers, to the enjoyment of the fruits of his own exertions? Is it not… the fact that each particular pair of hands obey a particular brain and are related to a particular stomach; the fact that each man is a definite, coherent, independent whole — which alone justifies individual ownership? As a man belongs to himself, so his labor when put in concrete form belongs to him."
– Henry George, 1879, Progress and Poverty, Book III, Ch. 1
Excerpt
The fact is, that without noticing the change, Mr. Spencer has dropped the idea of equal rights to land, and taken up in its stead a different idea -- that of joint rights to land. That there is a difference may be seen at once. For joint rights may be and often are unequal rights. The matter is an important one, as it is the source of a great deal of popular confusion. Let me, therefore, explain it fully.>>>more
Property and Practical Reason, 2015, by Adam J. MacLeod, Cambridge University Press, reviewed by Allen Mendenhall, associate dean at Faulkner University’s Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, The Moral Case for Property Rights, January 18, 2016 issue of Law & Liberty,
Excerpt: The James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University has become a hub of conservative constitutionalism and natural law theory, a forum where mostly likeminded scholars and public intellectuals can come together for constructive dialogue and critique. Directed by Robert P. George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton, the program has hosted established and emerging scholars alike. Adam MacLeod is one of the latter—a figure to watch, a fresh and tempered voice in the increasingly ideological field of jurisprudence and legal theory. During his James Madison fellowship, with the support and advice of his colleagues, MacLeod wrote Property and Practical Reason, his first book.
MacLeod frames his normative claims and pleas within the common law context. And he gives us his thesis in his crisp opening sentence: “This book makes a moral case for private property.”
He adds that “institutions of private ownership are justified.”
That institutions of private ownership are now jeopardized is upsetting. Before the 18th century, it was simply taken for granted in most Western societies that private property rights incentivized both work and custodianship and served moral ends. Leaders of advanced nations understood that the opportunity to own land or goods motivated people to work; that work, in turn, contributed to the aggregate health of the community; and that once ownership was attained, owners preserved the fruits of their labor and likewise respected the fruits of others’ labor as having been dutifully earned. There were, of course, violations of these principles in Western societies, which is why the law protected and promoted private ownership.>>>more
Excerpt from a Jan. 2016 comment, following the above review article:
First Locke argues that, in essence, nature is worthless,
and that natural things acquire value only to the extent that they are combined with human labor. An apple growing on a tree is worthless; an apple acquires value only when a human picks it – and then, the apple becomes the property of the picker. You might imagine how well this view went down with landowners. Then Locke proceeds to discuss the theory justifying private property. Locke defends the individual’s right to claim natural things (such as land) for herself so long as she leaves property for others, “enough and as good” as the property she claims. This theory might justify private ownership of a website– but it’s hard to find other opportunities to apply it. Certainly the idea that there is basically an unlimited supply of land of equal value for anyone to claim is absurd. It must have seemed especially absurd to the British in 1689, coming at the apex of the Enclosure Movement whereby commoners were expelled from ancient common lands so that the land could become the private property of the well-to-do.
But in the New World, with its vast expanses of land occupied by nobody that mattered, Locke’s Treatises found greater acceptance. >>>more
John Locke's chapter "On Property," from his Second Treatise on Government, asserted that any person has a right to exclusive possession of land, "provided that there is enough, and as good, left to others." This is but another way of saying that the common right to hold land is limited only by the equal rights of others. As long as this proviso is met, the landholder has no reciprocal obligation to the community or its members, because his holding land has not prevented others from exercising their rights to do likewise.
Locke also noted that economies relying on private possession of land are vastly more productive than nomadic economies, and that it is in the public interest to grant possession within the limits of his proviso.
Locke further noted that his proviso referred to there being land as good as the unimproved value of the land already taken up:
"He that had as good left for his improvement, as was already taken up, needed not complain, ought not to meddle with what was already improved by another's labour: if he did, it is plain he desired the benefit of another's pains, which he had no right to, and not the ground which God had given him in common with others to labour on, and whereof there was as good left, as that already possessed, and more than he knew what to do with, or his industry could reach to." [Sec. 34]
Locke went on to state that, when populations were sparse and the economy was not fully monetized, there was no incentive for people to take up more land than they intended to use, and so there was little violation of the rights of others. However, with the growth of population, good land became scarce, and with the introduction of money, it became profitable for people to take up land they had no intention of using, so that others would pay them to let go of that land. It is at this point that Locke's proviso was violated, and systems of land tenure had to be established by social compact.
Locke did not state what the particulars of social compacts should be, but it would be logical for him to advocate a compact that would be harmonious with his proviso that land should be accessible to others, and with his other proviso, that land should not be appropriated to be held out of use.>>> more
Written into the constitution of the Euro-zone is that only banks should create credit and create it at interest;
- That government should not provide money to the economy;
- Governments should raise their money by selling off the public domain to private investors;
- That government should not provide social services;
-
Should not provide infrastructure services;
- That all of these should be privatised and that means building into their price structure interest charges, exorbitant salaries, and economic rent for whatever the privatisers can charge. (01:26)
The Tyranny of Billionaire Monopolists - Why It Matters:
Critics of markets lack an understanding of truly free markets, Progress,2015, by San Jose State University Economist Fred Foldvary PhD.
"When the land rent is distributed equally among the people, and when there is no legal restriction or imposed cost on peaceful and honest enterprise, nor on the consumption of goods, then a basic income from rent, plus the easy ability to become self-employed, prevents firm owners from exploiting workers, and prevents landlords from becoming housing tyrants. The case for landlord and company tyranny by billionaires collapses when closely examined. But the critics cannot do such analysis, as they keep confusing capitalism as a free market with capitalism as today’s mixed economies. And when they do use the term “free,” they don’t delve into the natural-law ethic that gives freedom and liberty their meaning. The welfare-statist critique of markets is a failure to think things through."
“There are no Sacred and unSacred places, there are only Sacred and deSecrated places.” – Wendell Berry (b. 1934-)
“Until we understand what the land is, we are at odds with everything we touch. And to come to that understanding it is necessary, even now, to leave the regions of our conquest - the cleared fields, the towns and cities, the highways - and re-enter the woods. For only there can a man encounter the silence and the darkness of his own absence. Only in this silence and darkness can he recover the sense of the world's longevity, of its ability to thrive without him, of his inferiority to it and his dependence on it. Perhaps then, having heard that silence and seen that darkness, he will grow humble before the place and begin to take it in - to learn from it what it is. As its sounds come into his hearing, and its lights and colors come into his vision, and its odors come into his nostrils, then he may come into its presence as he never has before, and he will arrive in his place and will want to remain. His life will grow out of the ground like the other lives of the place, and take its place among them. He will be with them - neither ignorant of them, nor indifferent to them, nor against them - and so at last he will grow to be native-born. That is, he must reenter the silence and the darkness, and be born again.
– The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, 2003, pg. 27 ("A Native Hill" 1968). Note: the Berry Center, run by Wendell & Tanya Berry's children, is a nonprofit dedicated to educating local communities about sustainable agriculture.
What on Earth is the Doughnut?. . .
Excerpt:
Humanity’s 21st century challenge is to meet the needs of all within the means of the planet. In other words, to ensure that no one falls short on life’s essentials (from food and housing to healthcare and political voice), while ensuring that collectively we do not overshoot our pressure on Earth’s life-supporting systems, on which we fundamentally depend – such as a stable climate, fertile soils, and a protective ozone layer. The Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries is a playfully serious approach to framing that challenge, and it acts as a compass for human progress this century. The Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries (2017) . . .
Excerpt:
Things are not going well in the world’s richest economies. Most OECD countries are facing their highest levels of income inequality in 30 years, while generating ecological footprints of a size that would require four, five or six planet Earths if every country were to follow suit. These economies have, in essence, become divisive and degenerative by default. Mainstream economic theory long promised that the solution starts with growth – but why does that theory seem so ill-equipped to deal with the social and ecological fallout of its own prescriptions? The answer can be traced back to a severe case of physics envy.
In the 1870s, a handful of aspiring economists hoped to make economics a science as reputable as physics. Awed by Newton’s insights on the physical laws of motion – laws that so elegantly describe the trajectory of falling apples and orbiting moons – they sought to create an economic theory that matched his legacy. And so pioneering economists such as William Stanley Jevons and Léon Walras drew their diagrams in clear imitation of Newton’s style and, inspired by the way that gravity pulls a falling object to rest, wrote enthusiastically of the role played by market forces and mechanisms in pulling an economy into equilibrium.
Their mechanical metaphor sounds authoritative, but it was ill-chosen from the start – a fact that has been widely acknowledged since the astonishing fragility and contagion of global financial markets was exposed by the 2008 crash.
The most pernicious legacy of this fake physics has been to entice generations of economists into a misguided search for economic laws of motion that dictate the path of development. People and money are not as obedient as gravity, so no such laws exist. Yet their false discoveries have been used to justify growth-first policymaking.
>>> more
Four commentaries by George Monbiot, the legendary British writer, environmental and political activist Back to top
Excertp: There’s another great subsidy, which all of us have granted. I’m talking about the vast wealth the economic elite has accumulated at our expense, through its seizure of the fourth sector of the economy: the commons. . .
Enclosure creates inequality. It produces a rentier economy: those who capture essential resources force everyone else to pay for access. It shatters communities and alienates people from their labour and their surroundings. The ecosystems commoners sustained are liquidated for cash. Inequality, rent, atomisation, alienation, environmental destruction: the loss of the commons has caused or exacerbated many of the afflictions of our age. >>> more
Excerpt: Instead of growth at all costs, a new economic model allows us to thrive while saving the planet. . .
Faced with a multifaceted crisis – the capture of governments by billionaires and their lobbyists, extreme inequality, the rise of demagogues, above all the collapse of the living world – those to whom we look for leadership appear stunned, voiceless, clueless. Even if they had the courage to act, they have no idea what to do.
The most they tend to offer is more economic growth: the fairy dust supposed to make all the bad stuff disappear. Never mind that it drives ecological destruction; that it has failed to relieve structural unemployment or soaring inequality; that, in some recent years, almost all the increment in incomes has been harvested by the top 1%. As values, principles and moral purpose are lost, the promise of growth is all that’s left.
You can see the effects in a leaked memo from the UK’s Foreign Office: “Trade and growth are now priorities for all posts … work like climate change and illegal wildlife trade will be scaled down.” All that counts is the rate at which we turn natural wealth into cash. If this destroys our prosperity and the wonders that surround us, who cares? >>>more
4. Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems George Monbiot, 15 April, 2016, The Guardian Financial meltdown, environmental disaster and even the rise of Donald Trump – neoliberalism has played its part in them all. Why has the left failed to come up with an alternative?
Excerpt
Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in conversation and you’ll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism: do you know what it is?
Its anonymity is both a symptom and cause of its power. It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises: the financial meltdown of 2007-8, the offshoring of wealth and power, of which the Panama Papers offer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, the rise of Donald Trump.
But we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name. What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?
…
So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power... >>>more
"I realised that the way the derivatives market had developed meant it did not mitigate risk, it was a risk in itself.... And it's an extraordinary shift in that I think that deep sense of distrust is actually now permeating global relationships."– Satyajit Das, a former banker specialising in financial derivatives and risk management, and the author of several provocatively titled books, including ‘Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives’ (2006), ‘Extreme Money: Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk.’(2011), ‘A Banquet of Consequences: Have We Consumed Our Own Future?’ (2015), 'The Age of Stagnation: Why Perpetual Growth is Unattainable and the Global Economy is in Peril, (2016). Satyajit Das featured on
two radio interviews conducted by Philip Adams, Late Night Live (LNL), ABC-Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): December 2011 and September 2015.
The following is an excerpt from December 2011 LNL interview:
Until 2006/ 2007, there was a feeling that the developed world had worked out their business models, their economic models, their financial models, and they had something to teach India and Bejing. But now there is a deep sense that the models don't work and what is really of concern to these people, in different ways, is the fact that the failures of the developed world will effect them.
For instance, in India, I hear now that the Colonials have basically damaged us in so many different ways - during the Colonial period and now, when we are growing, they manage to do things which essentially damage us.
And in Bejing, there is a fascinating sense of mistrust. Because they [the US] have taken 3.2 trillion dollars of our sweat and hard work, which we've invested in their government bonds, which is now losing value, literally by billions, every minute. And, these people are deliberately doing that to us. That is very, very deep.
And then Christian Lagared comes, on behalf of the IMF, to Bejing to ask us to put money in to save Europe. And the irony of asking a county where the average income is 4k helping a country with an average income of 30k is completely lost on Christian Lagarde, who says they won't accept any conditional aid. Like, give us Taiwan, give us Tibet, and all of these types of things.
And it's an extraordinary shift in that I think that deep sense of distrust is actually now permeating global relationships. I think that is a very significant change, not so much this year, but over the last 2 or 3 years. – Satyajit Das, 2011
Resurrection (1889) (pdf), Leo Tolstoy’s last major novel before his death in 1910, is a scathing exposition of the myriad prejudices of the man-made justice system and the hypocrisy of the establishment, while it also explores the economic philosophy of Georgism – of which Tolstoy had become a strong advocate toward the end of his life:
"The essence of all slavery consists in taking the product of another's labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded upon ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live" - Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
Was the World Made for Man? (1903), Mark Twain's critical satire arguing against Wallace and Darwin's 'beliefs' on evolution through natural selection was published posthumously in Letters from the Earth (1962), a collection of his essays edited by Bernard DeVoto. >>> more
Dan Beard's illustration for Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) “Beard got everything that I put into that book and a little more besides…. Beard put it all in that book. I meant it to be there. I put a lot of it there and Beard put the rest.” – Mark Twain
Mark Twain and the Single Tax
by Jim Zwick, Ph.D.
Excerpt: Mark Twain’s essay “Archimedes,” a tract against monopoly in land ownership, is one of the most obscure Twain texts. It was reprinted in The Twainian in 1953, but does not seem to have been included in any anthologies of his writings. That is unfortunate because it could be a key text for understanding Twain’s views on political economy at the time A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court was written, his relationship with Dan Beard who illustrated that book, and his attitude towards Henry George’s single tax movement, one of the most influential social reform movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. >>> more
"I am in no degree ashamed of having changed my opinions.
What physicist who was active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed?" – Bertrand Russell
Two 1934 commentaries from Bertrand Russell
1.
The Sphere of Liberty, Bertrand Russell, 1934, Esquire
Urging that free competition should decrease in economics, increase in ideas and opinions,
"LIBERTY, as conceived by eighteenth century reformers, depended upon the economic structure of society at that time. In America, and in France after the Revolution, there were, on the land, large numbers of small independent freeholders; in the towns, artisans could work without borrowed capital, and therefore with a certain degree of independence. The obstacles to liberty, so far as large classes were concerned, were, therefore, political rather than economic, and could be removed, to a great extent, by purely political means. . ." (Russell, 1934)
2.
Why I Am Not a Communist,
Bertrand Russell, 1934, p. 52:
The Meaning of Marx, a symposium (PDF) by Bertrand Russell, John Dewy, Morris Cohen, Sydney Hook, Sherwood Eddy, published by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. New York
Excerpt, page 52:
WHEN I speak of a "Communist," I mean a person who accepts the doctrines of the Third International. In a sense, the early Christians were Communists, and so were many medieval sects; but this sense is now obsolete. I will set forth my reasons for not being a Communist seriatim.
1. I cannot assent to Marx's philosophy, still less to that of Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. I am not a materialist, though I am even further removed from idealism. I do not believe that there is any dialectical necessity in historical change; this belief was taken over by Marx from Hegel, without its only logical basis, namely the primacy of the Idea. Marx believed that the next stage in human development must be in some sense a progress; I see no reason for this belief.
2. I cannot accept Marx's theory of value, not yet, in his form, the theory of surplus-value. The theory that the exchange-value of a commodity is proportional to the labor involved in its production, which Marx took over from Ricardo, is shown to be false by Ricardo's theory of rent, and has long been abandoned by all non-Marxian economists. The theory of surplus-value rests upon Malthus' theory of population, which Marx elsewhere rejects. Marx's economics do not form a logically coherent whole, but are built up by the alternate acceptance and rejection of older doctrines, as may suit his convenience in making out a case against the capitalists. >>>more
Followed directly by John Dewey's 1934 essay on the same theme, WHY I AM NOT A COMMUNIST:
Excerpt:
HAVING had the opportunity to see the contribution of Mr. Bertrand Russell, I have doubts as to whether I can say much that he has not already said. But I begin by emphasizing the fact that I write with reference to being a Communist in the Western world, especially here and now in the United States, and a Communist after the pattern set in the U.S.S.R.
1. Such Communism rests upon an almost entire neglect of the specific historical backgrounds and traditions which have operated to shape the patterns of thought and action in America.
The autocratic background of the Russian church and state, the fact that every progressive-movement in Russia had its origin in some foreign source and has been imposed from above upon the Russian people, explain much about the form Communism has taken in that country. It is therefore nothing short of fantastic to transfer the ideology of Russian Communism to a country which is so profoundly different in its economic, political, and cultural history…>>>more
Buddhist Teaching When people devote themselves to benefitting all beings through harmony, they create awareness and develop a better world.
Xun Kuang 'Xunzi' (310- 220 B.C.E, China) "Heaven has its reasons. Earth has its resources. Man has his political order thus forming with the first two a triad. But he would err if he failed to respect the ground rules of this triad and infringed on the other two." - Xunzi (book) + (Xunzi Hsün Tzu)
Voltaire(1694-1778) had his character Candide, (1759) say,
"The fruits of the earth are a common heritage of all, to which each man has equal right". Jean-Jacques Rousseau(1712-1778)
"The first man who, having fenced off a plot of land, thought of saying, 'This is mine' and found people simple enough to believe him was the real founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, how many miseries and horrors might the human race had been spared by the one who, upon pulling up the stakes or filling in the ditch, had shouted to his fellow men: 'Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you forget the fruits of the earth belong to all and that the earth belongs to no one."
–Discourse on Inequality (1755) (PDF)
Adam Smith (1723-1790)
"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."- The Wealth of Nations (1776), V.i.b.12 (Part II)
Thomas Paine(1737-1809) "Men did not make the earth…. It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property…. Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."- Agrarian Justice (1797)
Chief Seattle(1780-1866)
"This we know: The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected."
- 1854 Speech and Letter
Henry George (1839–1897) "For the study of political economy you need no special knowledge, no extensive library, no costly laboratory. You do not even need text-books nor teachers, if you will but think for yourselves. All that you need is care in reducing complex phenomena to their elements, in distinguishing the essential from the accidental, and in applying the simple laws of human action with which you are familiar."
- Progress and Poverty (1879)
Herbert Spencer(1820-1910)
British philosopher and more famous than Marx at the time, said, "Equity does not permit property in land... The world is God's bequest to mankind. All men are joint heirs to it".
Dr Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), father of modern China. "The teachings of Henry George will be the basis of our program of reform…. The land tax as the only means of supporting the government is an infinitely just, reasonable, and equitably-distributed tax, and on it we will found our new system...
The centuries of heavy and irregular taxation for the benefit of the Manchus have shown China the injustice of any other system of taxation."- Sun Yat-Sen's Three Principles, 1970
David Lloyd George(1863-1945) "Who ordained that the few should have the land of Britain as a perquisite; who made 10,000 people owners of the soil, and the rest of us trespassers in the land of our birth?"
- Newcastle-on-Tyne speech, 9th October, 1909
Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959) "Henry George showed us . . . the only organic solution of the land problem." - The Living City (1958)
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)
"If I were now to rewrite the book, I would offer a third alternative - the possibility of sanity. Economics would be decentralist and Henry Georgian." - "Brave New World" (1932) - 1958 preface, 2nd edition
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) "Nothing is more amusing than to watch the efforts of land monopolists to claim that other forms of property and increment are similar in all respects to land and the unearned increment on land." – Winston Churchill, Edinburgh, Scotland, 17 July, 1909
Jomo Kenyatta (1889-1978), former prime minister of Kenya. "When the white man came we had the land and they had the Bible. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed and when we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible."
(source unknown)
Agnes George de Mille (1905-1993), the legendary dance choreographer and grand-daughter of Henry George, who “helped transform the American musical theater of the '40s and '50s.” "We have reached the deplorable circumstance where in large measure a very powerful few are in possession of the earth's resources, the land and all its riches, and all the franchises and other privileges that yield a return. These monopolistic positions are kept by a handful of men who are maintained virtually with out taxation . . . we are yielding up sovereignty." - Who Was Henry George? (1979)
Tax Land, Not Man
- "Quotes about Henry George"collated by Adam Jon Monroe, Jr.
"Land is everyone's daily source of life (via sleep). So, to be fair (and efficient), a government needs to allow everyone equal access to location (existence)."
"There’s another great subsidy, which all of us have granted.
I’m talking about the vast wealth the economic elite has accumulated at our expense, through its seizure of the fourth sector of the economy: the commons."
– George Monbiot, September 2017
