Chris Tolworthy's sandbox

2007-12-27T10:34:00.000Z

Whoops! posted to the wrong blog by mistake. This one will come back in a big way at the end of 2008, but until then it's dormant.

no more blogging for a while

2005-10-31T19:24:00.000Z

Like Fagin in Lionel Bart's Oliver, I've been reviewing the situation. This blog takes a lot of time away from my other activities, mainly the game I'm developing. The game has a serious purpose and, if I do it well, it will do more good than this blog ever could. But it demands a great deal of time. So no more blogging for a while. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do all I want. Blogging stops today. Over the next week or two I'll update the land rent web site, then leave that alone as well. I need to really concentrate on the game.

Thanks for reading.

Delhi bombing: the rational response is land rent

2005-10-31T08:59:00.000Z

Today's top BBC story is still the Indian bombing. I might seem crazy to link this with land rent, but hear me out.

According to the article there are many "terrorist" groups in Kashmir. According to everything I can find, sixty dead is very few compared with the thousands who die in the endless round of violence in Kashmir. And if you read about what motivates each side (Pakistan, Kashmir, India) the number of dead is far less than the number who are passionately angry about the question of who controls the land.

The word "rational" comes from the word "ratio" and means an ability to tell when one thing is more larger or more important than another thing. A rational approach to terrorism shows that the big picture, the cause that we should address, is land ownership. When terrorism threatens, we should redouble our efforts to promote land rent. It is the only rational response.

Indian bombing shows the need for land rent

2005-10-30T09:43:00.000Z

Today's top BBC story is a bombing in India. Compared with the earthquake, this is insignificant. As noted earlier, earthquake deaths are caused by poverty, and economic justice is the solution to poverty. Hence, even in the face of a bombing, our priority should still be land rent.

Who caused the bombing? Fingers are pointed at the Kashmir rebels. If it was them, why did they bomb? Finding answers on western news sites is very difficult - we are told in one sentence that "they want Kashmir to be part of Pakistan" with no further analysis. Plainly we are not supposed to think about their demands. Anyone who bombs another country is plainly evil. (Unless of course it is us.)

Further investigation suggests that the number of deaths in bombing is nothing compared with the deaths within Kashmir itself. This is the only article I could find that tried to explain the Kashmiri point of view. Right or wrong, their point of view is what causes the bombing, assuming that Kashmii militants are the bombers:

My investigation took me to the region in 1993 to carry out extensive field
research on the besieged everyday life of the Kashmiri people, a people seeking
national emancipation from a colonial power. I discovered a similar problem in
Bosnia. The major difference, however, is that Kashmir's tragedy is situated on
the periphery of the world; therefore, the international community has dismissed
it as inconsequential even with the loss of tens of thousands of lives. To
complete my research on Kashmir, I documented the Indian-Pakistan dispute over
the Siachen Glacier located in the Karakoram Mountains of Northern Kashmir.
There are no inhabitants on earth here other than the two rival armies faced-off
on this frozen battlefield. Living with the Pakistani soldiers on this perilous
glacier, I began to understand and chronicle the fervent commitment and costly
sacrifices made on behalf of the Kashmiri people. I also studied the people of
Baltistan who live within a region of Kashmir. Most of the research on Kashmir
fails to report the situation as it is, pivoting on Kashmir's desire to separate
from India, and India's military hold on Kashmir which has led to massive human
rights abuses. The primary purpose in my research was to understand this
conflict from the Kashmiri point of view, to come to terms with the real issues
at stake, and to document state violence against a people guilty only of the
crime of defending their liberty to decide their own destiny. My photographic
record offers a visual chronicle of my visit to Kashmir, and a reminder of the
human cost that has been endured by the Kashmiri people for many years.

- dissertation by Martin Sugarman, University of California at Los Angeles, 2001

It all comes down to a passionate desire for land. India wants Kashmir. Pakistan wants Kashmir. Kashmir wants Kashmir. Whoever owns land owners wealth. But land rent changes the rules - wealth only comes from work (any excess is given in land rent). So the mad desire for land cools down, to be replaced by a sane desire for the tax-free profits of honest work.

Note that even the craziest religious passion relies on economic realities. Bombers get their support from the poor and desperate or from the calculations of sympathetic governments. The ultimate cause is always economic.

Most so-called terrorism comes from a passionate desire for land. Land rent cools that passion and is thus the solution to terrorism.

The Lewis Libby story shows why we need land rent

2005-10-29T09:34:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story is about revealing the secret identity of a CIA officer. The story illustrates the weakness of a secrets-based policy. Apart from the fact that you can never prove that secrets work (because the information is not open to peer review), most of the examples that come to light show very little benefit. In this case we don't know what the CIA officer achieved (if anything) but we do know that her husband's discrete work was ignored, and all the evidence regarding WMD was ignored in favor of political needs.

The real power is political and this comes down to control of resources. Control of resources decides wars and policies, control of resources decides wealth and poverty, control of resources decides justice and misery, control of resources involves trillions of dollars taken from the poor and given to the rich. That is why land rent, the just allocation of resources is vastly more important than any silly games over who said what. In comparison, the whole existence of the CIA and other secretive organizations is irrelevant and probably counter productive by creating distrust.

"today's top BBC story" (unimportant post)

2005-10-28T08:33:00.000+01:00

I just checked the BBC site for a not-blog-related reason, and maybe I should clarify something. When I say "today's top BBC story" I mean the main headline at the moment when I write the blog. That is usually just after midnight or around 8 am my time (GMT +). I always choose the main headline to avoid any self-selection bias. But obviously the story changes throughout the day, so it may not be the biggest story of the whole day.

See, I told you this was an unimportant post.

land rent gives power to those who earn it

2005-10-28T00:14:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story is Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers stepping down. One way to view this is that the US president made a lot of mistakes, and this (trying to send his own lawyer to the supreme court) is just one of them.

GWB comes from a wealthy oil family. You have to be wealthy to become US president - poor people never get elected. A lot of oil money is earned (in prospecting, drilling, etc.) and the rest of it is unearned: a company that can buy the best oil land has an unfair advantage over the others. With better land, they can do the same work as their less landed competitors yet gain higher profits. Land rent would calculate the unearned portion and takes that as tax. That creates a level playing field for all competitors (and also allows all other business activities to be tax free, thus rewarding entrepreneurs). Applying this to GWB, he could only get rich in oil if he was a smarter businessman than his competitors. It appears that he isn't, so under a land rent system he would not be highly wealthy, so he would not be elected President, so he could not make silly decisions like today's.

A better leader in the White House - another benefit of land rent.

Israel and Palestine need land rent

2005-10-27T00:03:00.000+01:00

Todays top BBC story is a suicide bomber in Israel. At the root of all the troubles is that Israel and Palestine want the same land. Land rent would solve that problem.

Land rent takes the unearned value of land and gives it to society. So land owners keep all the wealth through their hard work, but none of the wealth that comes simply because of their preferential location. If land rent was applied between Israel and Palestine, Israel would have no economic benefit in occupying the prime land, and Palestinians would find their standard of living raised (see the main web site for how land rent creates a healthy economy). With less desire to grab territory and fewer desperate unemployed youths, the Israel-Palestine problem would be solved, or at least improved beyond all recognition.

Solving the Middle East's number one problem: another benefit of land rent.

the solution to a divided country is land rent

2005-10-25T23:56:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story is the Iraq constitution. Most voters supported it, but some opposed it. The opposition fears that increased autonomy means the oil-rich states can keep wealth instead of sharing it with oil-poor regions.

Land rent is the answer. With land rent, the value of all land is, in effect, equalized. One result is that no region has an advantages over another region simply because it sits on an oil field. (See the main web site for how land rent is calculated.) There are many other advantages, but this is the one that is relevant to today's news.

Justice between national regions: another advantage of land rent.

AIDS

2005-10-25T09:23:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story: millions of children dying from AIDS in Africa, and only five percent get any treatment. It is of course no coincidence that Africa is the (financially) poorest continent on earth. If we add up all the tragedies that are caused or made far worse by poverty, we arrive at one of three possible responses:

Denial. Just get on with your life, make some token payment to a charity, but "there's nothing you can do."
Focus on just one or two charitable needs and ignore the millions of others.
Attack all these problems at their root: economic justice.

It all comes down to poverty, and poverty starts at the most fundamental level: unjust access to raw materials. This unjust access leads to inefficiency, corruption, lack of opportunity, war, and all the other immediate causes of poverty. And these in turn lead to desperation, ignorance, an inability to plan ahead, an inability to cope with or recover from problems, and an endless catalog of misery and pain.
We should do what we can on individual issues like AIDS, environmental damage, terrorism, war, or emergency relief, but in the long term, land rent is the only real solution.

more hurricanes

2005-10-24T08:47:00.000+01:00

Hurricane Wilma again. Same response. If people have enough wealth, and everyone has a fair chance of gaining wealth, we can predict, avoid, ride out and recover from hurricanes. The real story is always economic justice.

BTW I just revised the main land rent site. Again. Every few months I look at the old site and say "that site was awful - what was I thinking?" Hopefully each revision is better than the last. This latest iteration removes several pages of waffle and speculation, tidies up what remains, and clarifies the economics.

Nigerian plane crash

2005-10-23T09:48:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story is a Nigerian plane crash. Nigeria has a very bad record for plane crashes, which suggests poor safety in general. This is hardly surprising, given the BBC overview of the country:

Thousands of people have died over the past few years in communal rivalry. Separatist aspirations have been growing, prompting reminders of the bitter civil war over the breakaway Biafran republic in the late 1960s. The imposition of Islamic law in several states has embedded divisions and caused thousands of Christians to flee. Inter-faith violence is said to be rooted in poverty, unemployment and the competition for land. The government is under pressure to improve the economy, which experienced an oil boom in the 1970s, but which has been severely undermined by corruption and mismanagement.

Another BBC report places the blame for Nigeria's problems squarely on the difficulty of getting Nigerians to pay tax.

Land rent is the fairest tax, and the hardest tax to avoid. Land rent ends competition for land because everyone pays the fair price so there is no benefit in land grabs. And since resources go to those who can pay the highest price, only efficient managers can rise to the top.

Land rent: the solution to tax avoidance, poverty, land competition, incompetent government, and all of Nigeria's economic problems - including crash-prone airlines.

hurricanes are an economic issue

2005-10-22T08:19:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story is Hurricane Wilma. Thanks to satellite technology (owned by wealthy nations), wealthy people have many days' warning to tie everything down then drive to safety. Then the governments and insurance companies can sort out the mess, and decide whether they should change their plans - e.g. encourage people to no longer live in certain areas, change insurance premiums, etc. In other words, this is a purely economic issue in which significant pain or death need not occur.

Of course poor nations and poor people will experience death and pain. Everything comes down to economics. And the most fundamental feature of economics, the foundation upon which all wealth is built, is land and rent (in the strict economic sense of those words).

assassination and controlling land

2005-10-21T09:51:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story is about who assassinated the Lebanese Prime Minister. As usual it's about land rights. "...it is widely believed that the Syrian authorities were angered by Mr Hariri's growing opposition to their influence in Lebanon. ... Syria was the main power in Lebanon until its military withdrawal earlier this year."

Land rent solves all this nonsense about land grabbing. If we have land rent, whoever occupies the land must pay the full market rate for depriving others of its use. Aggressive thugs cannot afford to occupy land, tanks or not.

Fewer occupations and political assassinations: another advantage of land rent.

aid is not the best answer

2005-10-20T07:46:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story is the need for aid to Pakistan earthquake victims.

"While 92 countries had helped nations hit by last year's Indian Ocean tsunami,
only some 15 to 20 countries had responded to the latest disaster. ... the
earthquake has come at a time when aid agencies are already very stretched
carrying out relief work in storm-hit central America, as well as Niger and
Sudan. She quotes a senior official as saying agencies would find it very
difficult to respond to another disaster. "

People just don't like giving aid. So it's not an effective way to solve (and more importantly, prevent) problems. But you only need aid if there is poverty. So the solution is to end poverty. It's not as difficult as it sounds.

justice or power?

2005-10-19T06:52:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story is Saddam Hussain's trial. It seems pretty clear that he is/was a nasty piece of work, ordered many deaths and should never have had any power. But the trial can hardly claim to be fair, since his mortal enemies hold all the cards. If the situation was reversed, Saddam could hold the same carefully managed trial for us. Only two days ago, 70 Iraqis were killed by western troops, and eye witnesses claim all the people were innocent. Even if we include all the million people Saddam killed since coming to power in 1979 , this is a lower unlawful death rate than the carnage since 2003. When one side holds all the power, a trial cannot be fair.

What's the alternative? (Do you really have to ask?) With land rent, the problem could not arise in the first place. If a society has land rent, thieves can never gain power. And the poor always have a basic income. Tyrants rely on genuine injustice to give them popular support - all tyrants arise amid great injustice. Take away the injustice and you take away their support. Give the ordinary people a land rent based income, and you give them the economic security to solve their own political problems.

Given that Iraq did not have land rent, and Saddam is in jail, would I stop the trial? No, but I would make it a very low key event. Saddam's system was based on theft backed by violence. Modern democracies are based on theft backed by violence. Sure, Saddam's had MORE theft and MORE violence, but let's focus on the real issues. Get rid of theft at the foundation of society, instead of worrying about who is the bigger thief.

nothing to add

2005-10-17T23:59:00.000+01:00

Today's to BBC story: 70 killed by American bombing, and Iraqi constitutional vote still being counted.

I have nothing to add to previous posts. The solution to all our problems is justice. With justice, people can get themselves out of poverty, and have the power to solve their own problems, and choose the leaders they want without relying on other nations.

Until we address the root cause of poverty - unjust access to resources - the world will always be in a mess.

bad weather and earthquake relief

2005-10-17T08:34:00.000+01:00

The top BBC story is still the Pakistan earthquake. This time the news angle is the weather. Nobody should underestimate the weather, but in a wealthy neighborhood there are enough roads, strong houses, and farm vehicles, that even if many roads were blocked, the weather would not be a major problem. I know that I keep repeating the same old message, but it is a simple one: the real cause of the majority of deaths, is poverty.

Poverty comes because of unequal opportunities (nobody wants or needs to be poor). The solution to unequal opportunity is land rent. By ensuring fairness in land ownership we ensure fairness in everything else, plus we encourage wealth creation, plus we ensure a basic level of income for everybody.

The problem is poverty. The solution is land rent.

arbitrary power

2005-10-16T09:17:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story is still the Iraqi constitution vote. Or rather, reactions from America. Have you noticed how power is so arbitrary? America's opinion matters because that country and its allies invaded Iraq. Previously, Saddam Hussein had power because he grabbed it and simply held it for as long as he could. Now, a constitution has been written by groups appointed by those in power, and it will be decided by arbitrary rules like how many vote for and against in how many places ("if voters in three of Iraq's 18 provinces muster a two-thirds majority against the constitution, it will fail.")

Iraq has arbitrary rules made up by whoever has the biggest guns. We can hope that the good guys win and their rules are fair, but that is only a hope. not a guarantee.

Land rent would provide a guarantee of justice. If they had land rent, wealth (and thus power) would be fairly distributed and predictable. Nobody could increase their wealth (and thus power) simply by grabbing land. It would also be a much simpler system.

Iraq constitution

2005-10-15T08:14:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story is the vote on the Iraq constitution.

"Sunni leaders fear the current proposals may lead the country to split,
with a Kurdish north and Shia south, depriving Sunni Arabs of access to the
country's oil resources."

As usual, land rent is the answer. Land rent is a fair rent charged on oil fields and other land. If one person gets the oil fields, they compensate their neighbors who were less lucky.

Justice in Iraq - another benefit of land rent.

bird flu

2005-10-14T09:54:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story is bird flu. Like most of the world's problems, this is a disease for humans in poverty. (The west is only at risk if it mutates into something that rich people can catch.) For a domestic bird to catch the virus, it needs to be in extended contact with wild birds, and for a person to catch the virus, they need to be in extended contact with the birds. Both situations require dry conditions. (The virus relies on droppings landing, drying out, and then the dust being inhaled.) In wealthy countries, domestic birds are kept separately from wild birds, and people do not spend much time with their flocks.

Since this is a disease of poverty, the solution to this and a thousand other problems is to cure poverty. Land rent is the fastest solution to poverty - see www.answersanswers.com for details.

Preventing bird flu - another advantage of land rent.

angry young men

2005-10-13T00:21:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story concerns a murder in Nottingham. I used to live in Nottingham, so took an interest in this story. It is just ordinary gang warfare, where sometimes the innocent get hurt.
Our nations are all based on stolen wealth (all land is taken from others) backed up by violence (armies). Gang warfare is just national politics on a small scale.

23,000 dead

2005-10-12T00:54:00.000+01:00

The Pakistan earthquake is still the top story on BBC UK. Quite right too. But I cannot help comparing this with the last time that a single news story dominated the headlines for so many days. That other story was the London bombing, at which 52 people died. Bombs killed 52, earthquake killed 23000. I hope that, in the next months and years, we can retain a sense of perspective about the real dangers in this world.

aid from the poor to the rich

2005-10-11T01:20:00.001+01:00

Today's top story is still the Pakistan earthquake. Todays story is about aid arriving from the west. So it is worth remembering that poor countries always send more wealth to rich countries than ever comes back in aid. It is a simple fact of economics, as pointed out in a earlier blog:

When a country is failing, it has less money to pay its people. Let us imagine that country A pays its people an average of five dollars an hour, and country B pays fifty cents per hour. For citizen B to earn a day of country A's production, he needs needs 50 dollars, so he needs to work for 100 hours. For citizen A to earn a day of country B's production, she only needs 5 dollars, so she needs to work one hour. So the pay difference of 10 to 1 produces a trade difference of 100 to one.
For poor countries to survive, they must trade with the rich countries. But the 100 to 1 disparity means that whenever they trade, the rich countries act like giant vacuum cleaners, sucking out anything of value from the poor country.

The few hundred thousand dollars pledged in earthquake relief should be seen in context: it is just crumbs compared with the vast wealth we suck out of Pakistan and every other less developed country. This wil be a fact of life for as long nations have different levels of economic success. The long term solution, as noted yesterday, is land rent.

fabulous wealth for all

2005-10-10T11:14:00.000+01:00

The top story is the still the Pakistan earthquake. I've covered the obvious benefits of land rent within a nation, now let's do some blue skies thinking: what if we had land rent BETWEEN nations? I know that nobody would accept it - theft and corruption are the basis of our societies - but let's imagine...

Imagine if each nation had to pay rent to everyone else for the land they occupied. Land would be charged at the market rate, so unproductive land would be very cheap. And since everyone is paying and receiving, the net cost would be zero. But efficient nations would find the cost easy to pay, and inefficient nations would find the cost too much. When people cannot pay rent, their land is sold on the market. Imagine if this infinitely sensible policy was applied to nations. Efficient nations would take over the land used by inefficient nations. Every nation on earth would be run at optimum efficiency, creating wealth for itself, and even more wealth for tis neighbors through trade. The whole world would have undreamed of wealth. And one of the infinite benefits would be that Pakistanis would have the latest technology to predict earthquakes, earthquake proof homes, and money to get out when the early earnings arrive.

Sure, it's blue skies thinking, but lets be clear: opposition to land rent costs the world trillions of dollars and untold misery. A few hundred thousand unnecessary earthquake deaths are just the tip of the iceberg.

Fabulous wealth for everyone in the world: another (long term) benefit of land rent.

off topic: expanding earth

2005-10-09T11:38:00.000+01:00

While looking for earthquake related sites, I was reminded of one of the great advantages of the Internet: interesting ideas never die! Years ago I read of the expanding earth hypothesis. It's a simple idea - if you try to fit the continents together (as they were before continental drift) there are gaps. But if the earth was smaller in the geological past, the continents fit perfectly. I lost my copy of the old article, but today I was pleasantly surprised to find several web sites devoted to the topic. The main evidence is summarized here. If this ever becomes mainstream science, remember that you heard it here first!

same news, same solution

2005-10-09T11:24:00.000+01:00

Today's top news story is still the Pakistan earthquake. It was far weaker than expected, yet the death toll was still high. People know that this big earthquakes are likely here, yet they still live in sub-standard housing. This just reinforces the point that the real story is poverty. So the solution is land rent.

Nearly every problem comes down to poverty. So the solution to nearly every problem is land rent.

surviving earthquakes

2005-10-08T10:45:00.000+01:00

Today's top news is an earthquake in Pakistan. This is an economic issue. With more wealth, people get more warning, have more chances to escape, and the buildings are more likely to survive. Land rent is the best way to get wealth, because it creates a society based on justice for all, and it rewards wealth creation.

Surviving earthquakes - another benefit of land rent.

intellectual property

2005-10-07T09:09:00.000+01:00

Todays top BBC story is the race to bring a new anti-cancer drug to market. Big drug companies are pouring vast resources into this, knowing that they can make huge profits. Yet patents will expire after 20 years. The 20 year patent rule is a very good rule. It works. It brings great profit to the creators of an idea, and then gives the idea free to everyone within a reasonable time. So everybody wins!

The principle behind the concept of ownership is to reward the creation of wealth. The key is to also reward society, because a lot of your wealth depends on society's markets and laws. Land rent does this for easy-to-measure property like land. A twenty year patent laws does this for hard-to-measure intellectual property. The same argument should apply to copyright laws.

Twenty year patents and copyrights - land rent for intellectual property.

geopolitical hypocrisy

2005-10-06T09:15:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story: Iran denies supplying the bombs that killed British soldiers. This is a self-defeating news story. If Iran was evil to supply bombs that killed eight people, then what does that say about Britain and America, supplying bombs that killed many thousands? If we start counting body bags, then Britain and America become the undisputed villains.

If we want our enemies to look bad, we have to find some rational basis for the war, in order to demonstrate that our choices were better than their choices. All such choices come down to one question: who has a right to control the land (and hence create the laws that others must live by)?

Land rent is the only fair system for allocating land, because it is based on market forces and compensating our neighbors for the inconvenience we may cause by depriving them of land. Without land rent, land ownership is at best arbitrary, at worst a constant source of bloodshed. Without land rent, war is inevitable and endless.

Land rent - the solution to geopolitical problems.

biofuels

2005-10-05T09:32:00.000+01:00

Today's top story on he BBC is about candidates for the Conservative Party leadership. It's all meaningless sound bytes, with no substance worth discussing. In the absence of a real story, here's something on biofuels.

My daughter (age 14) is to give a presentation on alternative energy at her school. Her teacher had prepared a summary of the issues to start her off. My personal favorite energy source is biomass - you grow it, burn it, and grow it again. Very simple technology, zero net emissions, a much bigger and more stable market in fuel, so everyone wins. So I was interested to see what her teacher's notes said about biomass: nothing. However, it did have something to say about biofuels (where you turn biomass into ethanol for more concentrated energy). It quoted research by David Pimentel, saying that biofuels use more energy to create than they produce, they require too much land, and they have serious problems with emissions - notably Nitrous Oxide (NOx) and the carcinogenic aldehydes. So I did some research, and guess what, Pimentel (and hence my daughters' teacher) is wrong on all counts.

Most researchers agree that biofuel creates a net increase in energy. See http://www.b100fuel.com Actually, it wouldn't be a fatal blow even if the overall energy balance was low or even negative. Biofuel is important because it concentrates energy so as to be portable - e.g. for cars. Its great benefit is that it is portable, not that it is efficient. Every battery takes more energy to produce than it gives out, but batteries still play a useful role.

Biofuels do use more land, but that can be an opportunity, not a problem. Biomass can be grown anywhere that there is sunlight and irrigation. At present, we import energy from just a few producing countries, and that leads to war and injustice. If we used biomass, far more countries could enter the market. Imagine vast areas of North Africa turned over to cultivation. We improve the environment, reduce poverty, an create a more stable market in one go. And of course biomass does not have to provide all the energy - there is also solar power, wind power, tidal power, wave power, efficiency savings, geothermal power, etc., etc.

NOx emissions depend on the type and use of the engine. Some research shows that it actually goes down. See http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_nox.html Similarly, aldehyde emission are not any higher than with conventional diesel - see the final report to the US department of energy on the subject. And remember that the main greenhouse emissions - like CO2 - drop to zero, because all the CO2 is reabsorbed into the next generation of biomass.

Any major change will have costs, even if instituted gradually. But compared with the costs of global warming (reduced coastline, global unrest, famine) or the costs of nuclear power (waste and decommissioning, accidents, availability of weapons-grade material, some of which will always be lost), biomass and biofuels are the bargain of the millennium.

old topics again

2005-10-04T08:05:00.000+01:00

Today's top story on the BBC is Turkey and the EU. I promised to stick to just the top story each day, even if the story is not new. This story is not new, and the land rent angle was discussed here.

And yesterday's tragic news of the old people who died on a boat trip is one more example of why our governments are wrong to focus on terrorism. A few days ago, twenty-something people died in bomb blasts in Bali. A few days later, twenty-something people died on a boating accident. Both events are tragic, but neither one justifies spending billions and wrecking economies and human rights.

off topic

2005-10-03T01:12:00.000+01:00

In today's news, 21 elderly people died in a freak accident on a boat. I was going to say somethings about land rent and retirement income, but thought it might seem in poor taste. So I send my condolences to the families.

undermining Al Qaeda

2005-10-02T00:33:00.000+01:00

Today's top story is the Bali bomb blasts. As usual, Al Qaeda is blamed. Al Qaeda's support rests on the injustice of the Israel-Palestine land question. A land ownership question? This is a job for land rent! If Israel had land rent, it would pay a fair price for occupying that land, and the non-occupiers (in this case the Palestinians) would benefit financially. Result: justice at last, and much less anger against Israel and its western allies.

Undermining Al Qaeda: another benefit of land rent.

better judgment

2005-10-01T10:06:00.000+01:00

Today's top story on the BBC is about gambling. The big question is, do casinos do more good than harm? Supporters point to the money they attract. Critics point to gambling addiction and crime. Who is right? Land rent helps us find the answer.

If casinos attract people and business to the neighborhood, this increases land values. But if casinos create crime and local people spend less money on other services, people leave and land values go down. For example, this is from a report on Atlantic City:

The study shows that casinos have had an effect on increases in crime in the region, especially in Atlantic City, its adjacent localities, and localities accessible via major arterial roads. Crime levels in accessible areas diminish with distance from Atlantic City. This possibly results from crime committed by crime-inclined visitors to the casinos or others related to the industry. The casino-related crime increase is reflected in depressed property values, an effect which diminishes with distance from the city.

On the other hand, the casinos create a lot of employment. So a calculation can be made. The calculation will not cover every possible cost and benefit, but even a marginal change results in movements of millions of dollars. This is more than enough to demonstrate whether casinos are a good thing (attracting people) or a bad thing (increasing crime). A land rent system constantly measures land values, so these calculations are made all the time.

Better judgment - another benefit of land rent.

Turkey and the EU

2005-09-30T05:42:00.000+01:00

Today's top story on the BBC is Turkey's attempts to join the European Union. (Actually, it's the second story, but I don't think anyone is interested in a minor Scottish by-election.) Turkish membership of the EU would be a Very Important Thing. It would bring a Moslem nation into a major western power block, achieving by peaceful means what violence has failed to do.

Unfortunately, I am ashamed to say, certain nations have raised last minute objections. I have to say that I agree with the various Turkish historians who say this sounds like racism, or at least a distrust of outsiders.

Culturally, nations are all insecure. Why? Because our nations, from their origins to the present day, are based on theft - exclusion based on violence. Our borders exist because centuries ago we stole the land by force. Land owners - from the billionaire to the humble house owner, gain security from knowing that, even if they are not the most efficient users of the land, they are still guaranteed wealth just because they own it. Our whole way of life is based on exclusion. We do not know how to share, except with our close friends.

Land rent changes that culture. Land rent provides a way that land (the source of all wealth) can be allocated according to merit, and (because land prices go down) there is always enough for everyone. It encourages efficient use of resources, then shares the profit with society. So land rent provides economic security that welcomes any outsiders into its system.

An end to xenophobia - another long-term benefit of land rent.

the Soham murders

2005-09-29T09:02:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC story is about the Soham murders. Ian Huntley had a history of unhealthy interest in young girls, then he got a job as a school caretaker and the rest is history. Why wasn't he stopped? Because all the evidence against him (before he killed the girls) was just hearsay and unproven allegations.

If hearsay and unproven rumors were allowed as reasons to stop people working with children, innocent people might not be able to get another job. That is why we have rules against using hearsay as evidence.

However, in a land rent system, there are far more jobs. It is easy for any employer to employ someone who is just marginally profitable, because there are not taxes to pay. Since it is easy to get a job, it doesn't matter much is someone is wrongly banned from working with children, they can work somewhere else. The government agencies could have passed on hearsay, with the understanding that it was just that - hearsay - and not enough to stop someone working in some other industry.

Keeping pedophiles away from children - another benefit of land rent.

junk food in schools

2005-09-28T10:26:00.000+01:00

Today's top BBC news item is junk food in schools. The government wants to ban it (more regulation!) But let's look at the land rent angle.

If you ban good food at schools, kids who want junk will just eat elsewhere. So a better solution is to change the kids' eating desires. Statistically, middle class kids are more concerned about eating healthy food than are poorer kids, so why not just increase the middle classes? (Not saying that poor kids don't care, but good food that tastes food costs a lot more than junk food that tastes good.) With land rent, everyone pays rent on where they live, but pay no taxes on work, so there are more jobs, and more incentive to work. Result: more self-reliant families, hence a bigger middle class, hence better food.

Children's nutrition - another problem made better by land rent.

slight changes in this blog

2005-09-28T10:19:00.000+01:00

Like you, I am a busy guy. I don't want to read ten news sites every day, especially when they just regurgitate the same old stories and ignore the interesting ones. And I don't think it helps this site - I end up finding odd little stories that interest me but possibly nobody else. It also allows me to ignore the stories that don't have an obvious land rent angle. No more! From now on I will only look at the top stories that other people think are most important.

So until further notice, I will only report on the top story each morning from www.bbc.co.uk/news . Why the BBC? Partly because it has a reasonably good reputation around the world, and partly because I live in the UK, so there is a small chance I might know some background material on a particular topic. When I report on American news, there is a greater then normal danger that I don't know what I'm talking about. And finally, in today's global news market, the same kinds of topics come up anyway.

There is a risk that some days will just repeat old posts - how many times can you talk about the same thing? But if something is important it is worth repeating.

yes, tax does affect behavior

2005-09-27T09:02:00.000+01:00

The simple economic case for land rent is that land is inelastic. That is, if you tax land, you won't end up with less land. But if you tax elastic things like production, some production becomes uneconomic and people do less of it. Today's Adam Smith blog is a good example, discussing the effect of oil prices and other costs on the economy. (The question of sustainable oil was discussed here in an earlier blog.)

(Some people criticize my use of a right wing site like Adam Smith Institute. But I find that, apart from the core issue of ownership, they make a lot of sense. Of course, ownership is the whole basis of capitalism, so that one caveat is rather important.)

Intelligent taxation - another benefit of land rent.

comment spam

2005-09-26T19:32:00.000+01:00

Over the last few weeks I've had a lot of spam comments that I then have to delete. So I've enabled the feature where you have to copy some distorted letters in order to confirm a post. Hope you don't mind.

off topic: space elevators

2005-09-26T09:03:00.000+01:00

A few years ago I had a radio show where I interviewed local people. One man I remember vividly was a specialist in space elevators, and it struck me that this was an incredibly good idea. I am pleased to see that space tethers are back in the news.

A space tether is a long cable attached to a geostationary satellite. Or, to save the trouble of climbing said cable, a slowly rotating cable with its center half way between the ground and said satellite. Such an idea was impossible until the latest generation of strong, lightweight materials. the cable (or more likely webbing, to avoid the danger if one part breaks) would need to be tens of thousands of miles long, although only the bottom hundred miles or so would have any noticeable weight.

Rockets are incredibly expensive, vastly inefficient, and rather dangerous. An elevator is an infinitely more sensible idea. No more blast off, no more re-entry, just travel at a sensible pace, at a sensible price, and arrive in style.

land owners and land prices

2005-09-25T11:21:00.000+01:00

Interesting article in yesterday's Adam Smith blog, about land prices. British land prices are highly inflated, but land owners want it that way, and will fight against any attempt to lower prices. The most immediate result of land rent is of course to reduce land prices (because unproductive land is no longer profitable, so must be sold to someone who can use it better. Supply goes up, demand goes down, so the price goes down.).

Affordable housing - another benefit of land rent.

torture in Iraqi jails

2005-09-24T08:16:00.000+01:00

In today's news, more revelations of abuse of prisoners. The real problem is secrecy - everyone wants secrecy, and with secrecy we will do whatever we want. (Notice how, even at this stage, the authorities condemn the messenger - they still want secrecy.)

There are two solutions to secrecy: power, or trust. Trust arises from cooperation and cooperation from a fair balance of power. It's the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules. Or in this case, runs the jails. If you come from a dirt poor part of Iraq and decide to support the local charismatic leader, and if you then get captured by western forces, there is nothing you can do about it. The real problem is economic inequality. Which can all be traced to land ownership, on a local and a global scale.

Injustice based on secrecy based on inequality - another problem solved by land rent.

orang-utans and survival

2005-09-23T08:17:00.000+01:00

In today's news, orang-utans are threatened by the destruction of their environment. And the same goes for a thousand other species.

Wildlife and forests create measurable benefits. Trees release oxygen and regulate climates, wildlife creates tourism and is a source for new drugs, and people pay more to live in attractive places. All we need are laws that make people pay the full value of what they take. Land rent makes people pay the full value for the land, and the same principle can then be applied to other natural resources.

Species loss - another problem solved by land rent.

Venezuelan land reform

2005-09-22T07:56:00.000+01:00

Interesting article in Venezuelanalysis.com about the pros and cons of land reform. I won't try to summarize all the issues, except to highlight the last one:

Related to the goals of social justice and food sovereignty is the principle that land use takes priority over formal land ownership. ... Venezuela’s elite can still rely on the argument that a land use principle undermines private property rights, which are “sacred.” This sacred principle of private property is still an important element in Venezuelan culture.

In my opinion this is they key. Simply taking land from the rich will not work. Land rent has a solid basis in private property - society creates land values, and thus society owns that value. If the land owner also tries to own the extra value created by society, that is theft.

global warming

2005-09-21T08:03:00.000+01:00

The principle behind land rent is that you pay for your debt to society. Society makes your land more valuable, so you owe them. (And you pay no other taxes.) If we have land rent, people will get used to the benefits of paying their debts to society. It then becomes politically easy to extend the principle to other areas.

One area where we urgently need to pay our debts is global warming. Nature itself has provided us with coal, oil, air, water, etc, creating a massive level of value. But if we dump carbon dioxide into the air, we reduce the value of the world for everyone. So we owe a debt to our neighbors (and if they cause more of the problem than we do, then they owe a debt to us).

The size of the debt might seem large, but it is nothing compared with the long term cost of global warming. Here's just one more in an endless line of statistics: the carbon dioxide we are releasing now is similar to the amount released 55 million years ago. It raised the acidity of the oceans, killing off more than half of all ocean species. Recent ocean floor core samples indicate that the oceans took one hundred thousand years to recover.

Global warming: one more problem that would be solved if we had land rent.

the fur trade

2005-09-20T07:59:00.000+01:00

I support land rent because it attacks all the world's problems at their source: economic injustice. However, some of the world's problems are so urgent that they demand immediate action, even if it distracts from the long term message. One such evil is the fur trade. If fur is harvested in a humane way, I have no problem with it. But some fur is not. This is from an interview in New Scientist, 18 June 2005, p.22, concerning fur in Britain that comes from China. The full report is here.

On the farms we found animals in barren cages with floor area averaging 0.6 square metres, 25 per cent smaller than the European Union's recommended minimum. We also found animals exhibiting extreme fear and signs of self-mutilation. But of most concern was the way they were slaughtered. Animals were being stunned with a blunt object or swung by their hind legs head-first against the ground. Many animals were fully conscious while being skinned, and remained so for up to 10 minutes after all their skin had been removed.

It is hard to think of anything more horrific - not just the manner of death, but the life that leads up to it. Fur comes from mammals - creatures with similar brain structures and hence feelings to our own. A life of blind fear then being skinned alive? It makes simple starvation pale in comparison.

What angers me most is that western buyers pay for this, but deny it. I spent most of my life in a religious cult, so I understand denial. Everyone does it. Some things are just too uncomfortable, so we ignore them, or we construct elaborate justifications to let us deny that we are involved, or to make the bad seem good. But it is still denial. It just allows the bad things to continue.

I now donate each month to Care For The Wild International. There are other charities who fight against this evil. I urge everyone to examine their priorities and ask what other uses of your money are more important?

global warming and immigration

2005-09-19T09:27:00.000+01:00

This is old news, but an interesting application of land rent. The principle behind land rent is that you pay for the land you take from society. By the same principle, you should pay for the oil, water, clean air, and anything else you take from others. But in return you don't pay other taxes. Hence tax becomes an incentive to create more, and to benefit society.

A recent letter to Nature (discussed here) argues that if pollution causes global warming, and global warming creates millions of homeless people, then any country that creates thirty percent of the pollution should accept thirty percent of the immigrants. An excellent idea!

free trade

2005-09-18T07:13:00.000+01:00

In today's news, South African president Thebo Mbeki has called upon the US and the EU to end subsidies that harm the poor. This is only the latest of several free trade stories over the past few months. Earlier, EU sugar subsidies were specifically highlighted: we keep our prices at three times the market level, so our farmers produce too much, so we dump it on the world market at next to nothing, so third world farmers cannot compete. Another story was the Chinese clothing quotas - large quantities of Chinese clothing were impounded at the ports because of a mix-up over quotas. China quite rightly demanded that we allow free trade.

Who believes in free trade? Who wants the poor to escape their poverty? Not us.

council tax

2005-09-17T09:34:00.000+01:00

Today's top story on the BBC (in Britain) is property reevaluations. Local government tax comes from property values - but not land values. Clearly this is unjust, since it punishes people for improving their property, while allows wealthy people to have vast amounts of land yet pay the same as people with less. In addition, the amount of tax collected is arbitrary - each local council decides how much it wants, then charges accordingly. How we all wish we could get paid that way! In contrast, land rent only takes the money you owe to society (for taking its land) and nothing more. Here's an idea, why not try justice for a change?

setting the agenda

2005-09-16T07:44:00.000+01:00

Each day I read various news sites, and what stands out most is that the same stories are reported day after day, while most stories go unreported. I already spent several blogs on terrorism and hurricane Katrina, and don't have anything else meaningful to add (assuming my ramblings are meaningful!) .

Of course, we all have our own agenda. My agenda is land rent. Unearned privilege is behind most of the world's problems, and justice is the solution. Everything else - war, famine, etc., - is just a symptom. Or at least, that's how I see it.

Scandinavia and land rent

2005-09-15T07:28:00.000+01:00

Citizens worldwide believe that governments do not represent their people. The exception to the trend is Scandinavia, where citizens think their governments do a very good job. Norway, for example, is officially the best place to live for the fifth year in a row, and its citizens' views reflect that. And why is Norway so good? It spends its natural wealth on society. Its method isn't as efficient as land rent, but has a similar outcome. This generally better systems of government are further down the road toward land rent - Denmark (also Scandinavian and high in the rankings) already uses a limited form of land rent. Nations of the world, take note!

what if old folks paid land rent?

2005-09-14T10:10:00.000+01:00

My brother and I somehow got onto the subject of tax. I mentioned that land values should be taxed. He said, "That would make all the retired people homeless. They save all their lives to own a house, then they retire on a tiny pension, and they would not be able to afford the land value rent."

I didn't answer him (arguing with siblings is a bad idea) but he only looked at one side of the equation. Each person would gain more wealth over a typical 40 year working life than they would lose in a typical 20 year retirement. Moreover, anyone who held more land than they needed would have an incentive to sell their excess, thus returning the land to useful production, and benefiting all of society.

Of course, if society thinks that old people should pay no land rent, it is free to create an 'old folks allowance' that is exactly equal to whatever old folks pay in land rent. But we cannot ignore the facts: occupying land - preventing others from using it - has a real cost. Land rent simply forces us to face reality.

off topic: abortion

2005-09-14T09:31:00.000+01:00

I love science. As long as we have ignorance we can argue forever, but science provides answers that are measurable, testable, peer reviewed, etc. In other words, answers that, while never perfect, are better than any others. Many people still prefer ignorance, and ignorance is always the easiest (and hence most popular) route, but for those who want it, science provides the best answers we have. Which brings us to abortion.

Abortion is one of those apparently intractable problems, because people have very strong feelings on both sides of the debate. Enter science to shine a light. (This weeks' New Scientist has a very good article on the topic, but the only online source I have found is an anti-abortion site that attempts to rubbish the findings.) The latest research shows that unborn babies do not have the physical structures to feel pain before 28 weeks. Those paths simply do not exist. This is not an opinion, it is a measurable fact.

This does not answer every other question - there is still doubt over whether pain can be experienced after that point (though all the evidence suggests that those pain pathways are not put to use until after birth). There is also the question of why an unborn baby will move away from a needle. But even a single celled organism can move away from a stimulus, so that does not imply any higher functions. There are plenty of questions, but one by one they are being answered. Critics point out that pain receptors grow in the skin before 28 weeks, but this does not change the fact that the message cannot reach the brain.

We can argue against abortion on many other grounds, but on the question of "does the baby's brain feel pain before 28 weeks" the debate is over. The debate needs to move on to other topics.

how to fund infrastructure

2005-09-13T07:31:00.000+01:00

I've been reading a collection of land rent stories published in respected British magazines. This little nugget caught my attention. When the British government extended the Jubilee railway line in London, it cost £3.5bn ($5bn). But it caused land values to rise by £13bn. Next time, the government should pay for it by taxing the land value increase. Landlords would benefit because, even after the tax, they still make big profits from the new transport link that otherwise would never be built. And everyone else benefits from the link itself. Everyone wins!

a flat tax

2005-09-12T08:02:00.000+01:00

The latest British tax guide has doubled in size to 9000 pages, despite the government claiming to simplify it. More and more groups are despairing of this quagmire and talking about a flat tax - nobody pays up to a certain amount, then everyone pays the same. The argument is that this encourages growth and removes bureaucracy and avoidance. See here for a summary.

I wonder, would a flat tax be a step toward land rent? Might it allow people to see more clearly? If taxes become simple it might be much easier to shift them from production (which discourages work) to land (which is neutral)? In my view, complexity is the enemy of clear thought, and thus the enemy of land rent Perhaps the first step to thinking clearly is to simplify everything, e.g. with a flat tax?

Britain considers limited land rent

2005-09-11T00:07:00.000+01:00

An item I missed last week (scroll down to 'doing it wrong on land tax'): the British government is thinking of charging limited land rent: where a government action creates land value, that extra land value should be taxed. For example, if planning permission is granted, and so land values increase.

This is an excellent idea. But look at the details: the government does not actually create the value when planning permission is granted, it simply stops destroying value by withholding permission. Of course, it may be that withholding permission also created value by making the district a nicer place to live, in which case allowing permission destroys value in the long term. The only way to ensure that the real value is measured is to tax the bare land value everywhere. That way, the real long term benefits and costs are measured, and not just short term government-created distortions.

biomass instead of fossil fuels

2005-09-10T23:51:00.000+01:00

Continuing the theme of "what if land rent makes fossil fuels more expensive," I have long been a fan of biomass. Most cars can already run on vegetable oil with a little tuning. Result: zero net emissions, and no need to pump billions into exotic new technologies.

The Achilles heel of biomass is that it requires a lot of land to grow the stuff. But that is less and less of a problem (scroll down to 'the grass is greener'). Ten per cent of Europe's farm land could provide ten percent of Europe's energy. And Europe is a crowded place. What if we pay North African countries to irrigate their vast semi-desert areas? A solution to poverty, desertification, global warming, oil shortage, and a dozen other major problems all solved in one go. Sweet. :)

land rent and utility bills

2005-09-10T00:33:00.000+01:00

In today's news, British Gas is raising its prices yet again. If the people who own oil and gas fields had to pay land rent, would the prices rise much faster? The answer is no.

If they charged much more, users would simply move to other sources of energy - nuclear, biomass, wind, solar, etc. But land rent would ensure that the oil and gas industries do not disappear: if the companies lost sales, their land value and thus their land rent would fall until an equilibrium was reached.

It is conceivable that we might use less fossil fuels and use more renewables, and we might have to pay slightly more in the medium term, but the transition would be spread over several years. But the costs would be dwarfed by the financial and other benefits.

The really big change is saving the planet from the vast costs of pollution and global warming.
Further savings come from reducing our reliance on a single fuel (usually oil) and thus reducing the global tensions and wars that this brings.
With no incentive to keep unprofitable land, gas and oil fields would come onto the market. This allows genuine competition and thus lower prices. Meanwhile, alternative energy sources have more customers and hence can develop greater expertise and economies of scale.
Finally, land rent is spent on all of society. All society uses fuel, all society benefits from land rent. The difference is that land rent goes to those who most need it.

In summary, as regards the energy industry, the costs of land rent are negligible, and the benefits are enormous.

charity is not the answer

2005-09-09T07:38:00.000+01:00

The oil company Shell donated three million dollars to emergency aid from Hurricane Katrina. That represents about one hour's profits. Under land rent, oil fields would be taxed to their full value. All profit would come from extracting oil more efficiently than the competition - there would be no profit from simply owning the fields. Hence oil would still be pumped, but billions would go to the community, and everyone benefits.

inequality

2005-09-09T07:17:00.000+01:00

In today's news, some countries (such as the US) have more inequality - and hence poverty - poverty than others. There is massive inequality, and some countries are more unequal than others. We have three choices.
1. Business as usual.
2. Arbitrary redistribution of wealth.
3. Charge people for the wealth they take out of society.
Only the third choice - land rent - solves poverty and rewards wealth creation. It's not a hard choice.

oil for food in Iraq

2005-09-08T07:44:00.000+01:00

In today's news, the UN is criticized for how it handles the oil-for-food program in Iraq. It is easy to see this as a cynical attempt to distract attention from the much greater Iraq scandal in Washington, but it is refreshing to see how Annan accepts blame, does not play it down, and plans real changes. However, for the most part it worked well.

But my point is not about how well it worked, but to point out that the principle in action was land rent. Saddam Hussein did not create that oil, its value was created by the wider community, and thus its wealth belonged to the wider community. The oil-for-food plan, suitably reformed to avoid corruption, should be adopted everywhere and applied to all non-earned wealth.

morality: the great fly wheel

2005-09-07T08:21:00.000+01:00

A fly wheel is "a heavy wheel attached to machinery to equalize the movement (opposing any sudden acceleration by its inertia and any retardation by its momentum), and to accumulate or give out energy for a variable or intermitting resistance." Morality serves the same purpose in society. Morality is the accumulated wisdom of the ages - some things are "good" and some things are "bad." It averages out all the decisions of millions of people.

It takes a long time for morality to change. Clever politicians can appeal to morality to make people do apparently stupid things. But over the long term, enough counter examples will cause the heavy fly wheel to change direction. Without this fly wheel, people would take forever to make any decisions,a nd would change direction every day, and thus have even greater problems. Because the bottom line is that our brains are very limited, and we use numerous tricks and short-cuts to get better results with what we have.

So the inertia, though frustrating and occasionally disastrous, is good. Which means that, barring amazing events, any radical changes like a move to land rent, will take generations. But the good news is that it will happen, for the reasons given elsewhere. I just have to be more patient while the great fly wheel changes direction.

blind faith deserves respect

2005-09-07T08:02:00.000+01:00

The trouble with land rent is that it requires a little thought. I've been listening to George W. Bush talking about Iraq and new Orleans, and I have to hand it to the man, he is an expert at blind faith. He makes everything sound noble and optimistic and rosy. He says "forget the facts, just trust me" and part of me wants to. So he lied about WMD? So he cut spending on levees? So things have got worse when he promised they would get better? Never mind, he will fix it this time. He is very convincing if you open your heart and shut your mind.

Faith beats thought nearly every time. I have seen this even on the Georgist message board over at progress.org. While they have no time for Bush, most of the Georgists there (or at least the active ones) base their beliefs on blind faith. That is, God gave the land to everyone equally, and everything else follows. That theory, like Bush's "trust me" message, is intellectually bankrupt, but it is very powerful. In contrast, actually thinking through the complex reality is just tiring. Much as I dislike blind faith, I have to respect its greater power over the human mind.

the basis of morality

2005-09-06T07:39:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I revised the main site to focus on land rent and forget the Utopian stuff about choosing your own government. Discussing it on a Georgist forum raised some interesting opinions regarding the basis of morality. In short, the other contributors believe that "equal rights" are self evident and they should form the foundation of our arguments. I disagree.

Morality is useful. Morality is a set of short-cuts and conclusions that help us make quick decisions in complex situations. For example, sharing and tolerance are moral concepts. But they are not foundation for serious thought, because they are not absolutes. They are conclusions resting on other foundations, and they only apply under familiar circumstances. There are plenty of times when any particular moral statement does not apply. If we want a deeper understanding, we need to find where these morals come from.

So morality is like the laws of physics. Statements like "heat rises" and "gravity pulls downwards" are useful short-cuts, ideal for everyday use. But if we want a deeper understanding we need to take a cold, critical look at why and how and when.

Georgists, like Christians or anyone else with a moral agenda, are trying to persuade people who hold a different moral system. They are trying to persuade powerful elites who control armies and deal in realpolitik. Simply stating that your morals are right will not work. As long as Georgists base their arguments on ideas that others reject as impractical, they will remain in an intellectual ghetto and never persuade the powerful.

We need to understand the deeper causes if we are to find common ground. In the case of property ownership, the common ground is that an ethical system can be derived from a consideration of cold hard power and survival. It does not rely on feel-good notions of duty and sharing, it relies on evolutionary survival of the fittest, because the fittest need to cooperate. That is something that everyone can understand.

homelessness and land rent

2005-09-05T07:53:00.000+01:00

After the hurricane, many people are looking for shelter, or to rebuild. This might be a good time to remember that under land rent, nobody makes a profit from just sitting on a land monopoly. As a result, the demand for land goes down and the supply goes up, so the price of land falls. Which is good news for those who need somewhere to live.

complex issues made very simple

2005-09-04T10:23:00.000+01:00

It's all about money. Whatever the problem - war, global warming, disease, how much you suffer depends on how much money you have. The New Orleans story illustrates this. The wealthy people mostly got out early. The poor people (who were mostly black) could not get out. That is why I keep banging on about land rent. If we get property ownership right, then everything else is right.

hurricanes and land rent

2005-09-03T08:47:00.000+01:00

Best quote of the day: "W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives."

As usual, land rent would have prevented the problem. Land rent is based on the market value of land. The true market value, not the highly subsidized artificial value. If people paid the full market costs of living in a flood-prone area, you can be sure that those flood defenses would be rock solid.

Balkanization

2005-09-02T09:37:00.000+01:00

Balkanization is the main argument against freedom to secede. The belief is that people naturally hate each other, and if they have their own little countries, they will constantly fight, just like in the Balkans.

That is rubbish. As I type I'm listening to a BBC discussion with veterans of Sarajevo. Time has passed, the dust has settled, and conclusions can be drawn. Without exception, they tell the same story. It was a simple land grab by a Serbian army. The idea that "Balkan peoples all hate each other" is simply false - it was propaganda of the time, and simply false. Studies of previous Balkan conflicts send the same message, but let us concentrate on this one for now.

The real problem is that international law is based on land ownership, and land ownership is based on force. This makes it impossible to create fair laws, or to others to judge fairly between competing claims, or for others to raise support to intervene. Until we install land rent (meaning that you only get from land the wealth you create, and the rest is shared with society), then land ownership - and hence history - will be an endless story of the strong living off the weak, occasionally punctuated by wars.

reality bites

2005-09-02T07:24:00.000+01:00

Another non-land-rent story. I'm watching the New Orleans situation with great interest. Atheists have a saying (short enough for bumper stickers) - "reality bites." Meaning that, reality is reality, and will affect us even if we ignore it. New Orleans seems to illustrate this. Flood defenses were cut back in previous years. A large proportion of U.S. National Guards and their equipment are in Iraq. Government decided that terrorists were a bigger threat than nature. And now reality has bitten back.

Iraq stampede

2005-09-01T09:09:00.000+01:00

I have often commented that fear of terrorism is irrational, and more dangerous than the bombs. I didn't expect such a clear and brutal illustration of the fact. A typical suicide bomber kills maybe 10 or 100 people. The irrational fear killed nearly 1000.

New Orleans flood defenses

2005-09-01T09:02:00.000+01:00

In today's news:

"At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune [the local New Orleans paper] from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars." ...
"In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain [the lake that is now flooding New Orleans], according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness."

One more result of the irrational "war on terror"

Mugabe's land grabs

2005-08-31T07:36:00.000+01:00

In today's news, Mugabe has made it "legal" to steal any land he wants, with no right to appeal. Under a pure land rent system, the only income a government can claim is a fraction of the market value of the bare land. Land that can be stolen at any time has almost zero market value. So land rent would make a kleptocracy economically impossible.

Of course, a clever dictator would get around that by giving land to his friends, and taxing them. But land rent has another stark advantage: whatever the leader does, he cannot hide from land rent. Land rent provides a simple, clear and objective index of the value of a government:

simple because one index says it all
clear because it is easy to measure
objective because land rent is based on market values, not government whim

If Mugabe makes the land more valuable, his policy is proven right and the rest of us can stop complaining. But if the land becomes less valuable, there is clear proof that the guy is either incompetent of a crook, and other nations can move in and kick him out. Which is a topic for another day...

the Lord of the Rings

2005-08-31T07:26:00.000+01:00

I argued earlier that copyrights, like patents, should last around twenty years. Today's news illustrates why. One guy made $168 million from the Lord of the Rings movies, even though he did zero work on the movies. All he had did was buy the rights in the 1970s (for his own failed movie), and waited. It's nice work if you can get it.

irrational fear

2005-08-30T09:19:00.000+01:00

Being rational means being able to judge ratios (hence the word ratio-nal). So I loved this article in the Washington Post. Which dangers are we most afraid of?

Pneumonia killed 63,000 Americans in 2000 alone. The anthrax letters killed 5. We could also add that terrorism killed 3,000 in 2001, but almost nobody before or since. While road traffic deaths, gun deaths, heart disease... you name it, almost anything is more dangerous than terrorism. Whenever I see a headline about terrorism it always says the same thing: "Irrational fear! Irrational fear!".

Iraqi constitution

2005-08-29T08:01:00.000+01:00

In today's news, the Sunnis refuse to take part in making Iraq's new constitution. One of the reasons is the exclusion of ex-Baath party members (i.e. all Sunnis with any experience of politics). The other is that the other guys (Kurds in north, Shias in south) have all the oil. Land rent would solve the second problem.

Under land rent, valuable land (such as land with oil) is taxed more, and other land is taxed less. As a result, there is no economic benefit in owning oil-rich land, beyond the profit you can make from your own hard work in fair competition with everyone else. So one result is an end to conflict over land, and another is that the land is used as efficiently as possible, because everyone has a fair chance to compete . Sounds like it's exactly what Iraq needs.

floods in Europe

2005-08-28T06:30:00.000+01:00

I have resolved to stick to the narrow issue of land rent in its simplest form. That is, governments raise taxes from land values more than anything else. (Ultimately land values should be the ONLY thing taxed, but that would require some adjustment, so let's keep it simple.) Today's news shows once again where this would be a Good Thing. The floods will caused tremendous harm to land values (who wants to live where you might be flooded?) But under land rent, taxes (which is based on land prices) are automatically reduced. Land values go down when people move elsewhere, meaning the other land values go up, so the government does not lose out either.

completely off topic

2005-08-27T09:10:00.000+01:00

In another life, I read the Fantastic Four comic. (The movie was OK, by the way, not great but pretty good all things considered.) I don't like the fighting, but the optimism and ideas can be wonderful. Well, my favorite character is a little known creature called Lockjaw. It seems that nobody has made him a web site, despite some fanboy retcon controversy a few years ago (is he just a dog? Can he speak?) So I did some research and here's the result. Look, I told you it was of-topic :)

tax shelters

2005-08-27T08:56:00.000+01:00

In today's news, an accountancy firm is criticized for selling illegal tax shelters. But why were they illegal? If someone has created wealth, then it is their own wealth, and taxation is simply theft. Here we have the absurd situation where someone who creates wealth is punished, and someone who destroys wealth (by running a business at a loss) is rewarded with tax breaks.

The whole concept of taxation is wrong.

immigrants die in blaze

2005-08-26T09:33:00.000+01:00

In today's news, 17 immigrants died in a Paris fire. They had been placed in an old house and were waiting for new housing. Under a more just system, immigrants would not be "placed" anywhere and would not sit around waiting to be allowed to work, or waiting for handouts. They would be working, creating wealth, in fair competition with everyone else. And there would be no shortage of housing because land rent means more land is on the market, and at a lower price. But under our crazy laws, creating wealth is often a crime.

information will get out eventually

2005-08-25T09:43:00.000+01:00

In today's news, hackers are getting into a lot of US government files (though, officially, not the classified ones). This illustrates the points that

people want information
they will get it eventually

The more information we have, the less we support inefficiency. Land rent is the most efficient way to distribute wealth (See the website for details). So land rent is inevitable in the long term.

states versus individuals

2005-08-24T07:39:00.000+01:00

In todays news, critics of China's regime find they don't have anywhere to go. That's the problem if we let governments monopolize land. What do you do if none of the governments want you? Where do you go?

Iran, the shah, and the BBC

2005-08-24T07:28:00.000+01:00

Interesting report on the BBC (the link is only a brief summary). It's oil again, just as with Venezuela, and Cuba, and Iraq, etc., etc. Back in 1953, the US organized a coup in Iran, to get the unpopular Shah in charge. Britain helped, and got the BBC to talk up the "danger from Iran" and even broadcast the code word to start the invasion. In the 1990s, America finally apologized, but Britain never has. As a result of 1953, the Iranians never trusted the west (or the BBC) and instead turned to fundamentalism. The 1979 revolution looked back on 1953 and said "never again!"

Of course, none of this could have happened if land rent had been the policy. There would be no excessive profits from oil, so the wealth is spread more fairly, so there is more trust and less political interference, so there is more trade and a safer world, hence more wealth, and everybody wins.

Venezuela, Chavez, and poverty

2005-08-23T14:19:00.000+01:00

Pat Robertson, famous follower of Jesus and lover of democracy, says the US should assassinate Hugo Chavez, that guy who keeps winning elections in Venezuela, but doesn't support US policies. Those elections were pronounced fair by outside observers. Chavez won despite having powerful enemies - the wealthy elite hate him, they control the media, and the media is constantly promoting anti-Chavez stories. Yet Chavez wins. Why? Because the poor love him. And after six years of his reforms, they love him even more.

This isn't a pure land rent story, but it involves resource ownership, and it illustrates how the poor can sometimes win against the rich. When Chavez came to power, Venezuela was an extremely unequal country. Most of the wealth was owned by a tiny minority, and they naturally want to keep that wealth. They own the businesses and they own the media, and are not afraid to use them against Chavez. Some of these bogus news stories are repeated in the USA. I don't have time to look at them all, so let us just look at The Big One.

The backbone of the anti-Chavez case is that he allegedly increased poverty in his country. Strangely, the poor people don't seem to have noticed. Let us look at the oft-quoted statistics:

before 1998: poverty was increasing steadily for 28 years.
1998: (Chavez first elected) poverty is at 49%
1999: Chavez reverses the trend: poverty is DOWN to 42%
2000: (Chavez is elected again) poverty DOWN AGAIN to 41%.
2001: poverty DOWN AGAIN to 39% Chavez has a great record. But he made powerful enemies. In April they organize a coup, which is quickly supported by Washington. But the coup fails. Plan 'B' has the bosses and managers shutting down the oil industry for several months. Oil is Venezuela's life blood - this is a catastrophe of the worst magnitude. When a country is crippled, who is hurt most? That's right, the poor. Notice that this is caused by the oil managers. It's called a strike, but it was led by the owners and managers. Poverty skyrocketed:
2002: The statistics are gathered in the first quarter of each year. After just a few weeks of the chaos, poverty is up to 41%
2003: After months of no income, thanks to the oil barons, poverty peaks at 54%
2004: now the strike is over, Chavez once again gets poverty going DOWN: just 1 percent to 53%, but getting poverty down is much harder than getting it up.
2005: The numbers aren't in yet, but every indication is that they will be DOWN again.

These numbers only tell half the story. They don't count the longer term social changes put in place. But the poor see the changes. That's why they vote for Chavez in landslide numbers, again and again. The power of the oil barons has been broken, now Chavez can turn his attention to tackling corruption and other problems. His biggest danger is Pat Robertson-inspired assassins, or an US backed coup. If the USA can just give democracy a chance, the future looks very bright for Venezuela.

geniuses - how smart are they?

2005-08-23T09:04:00.000+01:00

Further to the discussion on 20 year copyrights and who owns oil, this comes down to the genius argument. The word genius comes from the same root as genesis and generate, it means creator. The level of genius decides the level of ownership. (Note that even the most mundane job requires some creative effort, until such time as it is fully automated and its value approaches zero, but this post is about the extreme cases of genius.)

An oil prospector could claim absolute ownership of an oil field forever, because his input is so unique he is, in effect, an oil genius. But if it was a simple matter of looking in an obvious place, then he would not deserve much more reward than the market rate for wages and machinery. So the question is, was this guy a genius? And if so, what level of genius - just a few years ahead of his fellow man, or centuries ahead? Both theoretically and empirically, we can state with confidence that super-geniuses probably don't exist, or at least not in the commercial world.

First, how likely is it that a brain will be so far in advance of others? Intelligence follows a statistical distribution called the "normal distribution," hence standard deviations, etc. Maybe one in a hundred million people are likely to be twice as intelligent as average, but that is about the limit. Statistically, a super-genius is vanishingly unlikely. Note that for a genius needs to communicate his esoteric discoveries to others - adding an even greater requirement for brainpower.

Second, every super-genius relies heavily on previous discoveries, and if they don't publish their results, others come to the same conclusions within a few years. Just look at the lives of Newton, Einstein, etc. Or in the case of oil exploration, new techniques are developed that make finding the stuff much easier.

In conclusions, no matter how great the genius, it is reasonable to assume that in twenty years their discovery will be either irrelevant (in the case of some fashionable book) or duplicated by others. So the twenty year rule reflects true ownership, and nobody can claim monopoly ownership on their ideas forever.

who owns oil?

2005-08-23T08:45:00.000+01:00

I'm reading a book about privilege, and it made me think. Who owns oil? Nobody created it (no human, anyway), yet certain humans (oil companies) did create the conditions that made it available. Meanwhile, society created its value, though the oil companies certainly did most of the work to allow this situation to arise. So who owns it?

To answer this question, we would need to compare the wealth of society with and without oil, and see how easy it was for some competitor to find the oil, and see the effects of different prices (do we harm society by making oil less profitable?) and so on and so on. This just isn't practical. But the flip side is that, whatever argument the oil companies use to justify profits, we can create equally convincing counter-arguments. For example, an oil company might say they need vast profits from some wells, to pay the vast costs of finding them. The response to this is, if they had lower profits, we would till have oil (from easier wells) but society would benefit from lower carbon emissions, more incentive to find alternatives, less international conflict over oil, more oil left for future generations when finding it will be easier, and so on. There is no clear proof either way.

One day we might have clear answers, but until then we have to treat oil discovery like any other discovery, like an engineering design or a new drug, both of which may take vast effort to develop. In other words, use the twenty year rule. Let them make their vast profits for twenty years, then treat oil as uncreated wealth, and let land rent do the rest, creating wealth and justice for all.

loaded words

2005-08-23T08:37:00.000+01:00

In today's New York Times: Troops and Extremists Face Off in West Bank. I don't think that wanting your own country, and being ready to kill for it, is extreme. Maybe foolish and harmful, but perfectly normal. In which case, the Israeli soldiers are defending an extreme, but correct position, that you do not own land just because you grabbed it. I agree with them. (Who would have thought? I agree with Israeli soldiers!) The article should have said "Extremists and Ordinary People Face Off in West Bank."

science and ethics

2005-08-23T07:42:00.000+01:00

In today's New York Times, an article on science and religion. The article presents a false dichotomy - EITHER we keep science and ethics separate, OR religion provides the ethics. The third (and I hope, obvious) explanation is ignored: that maybe science can provide the ethics.

Note that I say science and not scientists. A scientist in one discipline may be hopelessly bigoted in another. Religious people may collect examples of scientists who have created bombs, etc. But for every example of a bad scientists, I can show a bad religious person, and also show that the scientist in question based his ethics on religion.

Science is simply a rational approach to truth. For example, science can demonstrate that cooperation helps survival, and skin color creates less difference than random variation. Most important, science is testable, and if it is proven wrong it changes (or else it isn't science). To find systems of ethics based on science, just Google words like atheist or humanist and ethics.

To illustrate: My daughter's homework this week requires her to see how different religions approach an ethical issue. To help her, I found the nearest I could find to official statements on a hot ethical topic (in this case, stem cell research) from various religious and non-religious web sites, including Catholic, Anglican, Unitarian, Humanist, and others. On this topic at least, it is pretty obvious that the less religious you are, the more likely you are to be well informed, sympathetic to others, non-judgmental, and concerned about real consequences as opposed to imagined ones. Based on this, science has better ethics than religion.

more support for genocide

2005-08-22T08:15:00.000+01:00

Further to the 'nation of outlaws' post, today America is trying to dilute an anti-genocide law. Their words are against genocide, but their actions say otherwise. Oxfam notes that the US is trying to water down the proposals, and urges the US to reconsider. Why are they soft on genocide? Draw your own conclusions. But I think that many Americans, if given the choice, would be strongly against genocide. If we could choose our own governments, peace-loving Americans would not be tarred with the same brush as the rest.

UK and US support for torture

2005-08-21T07:51:00.000+01:00

Just a reminder that we (the UK and US) routinely send people to be tortured. As I noted in an earlier post, it doesn't work.

bankruptcy: of people and nations

2005-08-21T07:23:00.000+01:00

The availability of bankruptcy is in today's news. Bankruptcy is counter-intuitive. Who would have thought that allowing people to default could actually be good for the economy? It took thousands of years of debtors' prisons before the world woke up to the fact. As long as there were no criminal acts, society steps in to remove any remaining assets, and the person has to start again from scratch.

Bankruptcy works. We should apply it to nations. Nations should be required to pay their debts to the world (i.e. with land rent). If they cannot pay, their assets should be removed by society (the world) and freed up for better use by the market. Of course we have a long way to go - land monopoly is so entrenched that millions of people would support first use of nuclear weapons rather than give up their stolen wealth. But we should not forget the goal, and the inevitable future: good business practices (like bankruptcy enforcement and protection) extending to everything, including land.

ultra-low crime in the real world

2005-08-20T11:08:00.000+01:00

I've mentioned earlier the obvious fact that high surveillance leads to low crime. So gated communities, and close-knit villages (like mine) have very low crime. Land rent leads to the freedom to choose your own community, so each community is like a close-knit village or gated community. But that is long term. In the short term, land rent has a more immediate effect in lowering crime, by lowering the cost of land.

Rather than argue about the links between land monopoly and crime, let us look back to the time when America had low land prices. Congressman Henry George Jr explained the causes, and here is the result:

While Minister to France, Jefferson explained to one of his French friends that
in the ten years of his attendance as student and practitioner at the bar of the
Supreme Court of Virginia there, never was a trial for robbery on the high road,
and that he never heard of one in any of the other States, except in the cities
of New York and Philadelphia immediately after the departure of the British
army, "when some deserters infested those cities for a time." (Letter to M.
Claviere, Jefferson's Writings, Ford Edition, Vol . IV, p. 402.)

economic reform in North Africa

2005-08-20T07:53:00.000+01:00

Just read an interesting article on economic reform in North African states. It seems pretty obvious that we will wait a very long time before reforms come from inside. Reforms WILL come eventually, because the powerful want (a) survival, (b) wealth, (c) friends, and but it will be VERY slow in coming.

It's the same old story. The powerful grab the resources. Land rent would attack the problem right at the core, rather than throwing money at the edges and hoping.

the painless way to secede

2005-08-19T08:45:00.000+01:00

In the last post I suggested that a new government could be made, based on a small difference from the old one. This is technically very simple. In Britain, we have several examples of separate nations that only opt-out on a few things. Scotland has had its own legal system for centuries. The Channel Islands are a separate state with different tax rules, and are not part of the European Union. The Isle of Mann has had its own parliament for over a thousand years - since Viking times. Each of these states relies on the English parliament for most things and we live quite happily together. Running a separate government does not have to be difficult.

a nation of outlaws

2005-08-19T07:31:00.000+01:00

In today's news: Bush withholds aid from poor countries that refuse to hide American genocide suspects. The International Criminal Court was designed to try people for genocide. George W. Bush clearly feels it is likely to come after him or his people. So he opposes it - all Americans are now literally outlaws, setting themselves outside the laws that other nations follow. Bush says the ICC laws are not good enough. The ICC uses the same standards and methods as the Nuremberg war trials. Nuremberg was good enough to judge the Nazis. Why should Bush have problems with it? Are his own standards on international law any better?

If an American genocide suspect is held for trial, the so-called "Hague Invasion Act" says America can use force to free the suspect, like a Chicago mob blowing off the gates of the prison so a gang member can escape. For years, critics of America have referred the Bush and co. as outlaws. It is strange to find that Bush agrees with them.

Of course, every nation is free to create - or ignore - whatever laws it wishes. And other nations can judge it accordingly. Under a land rent system, those Americans who respect international law could opt out and make their own new, better America. And if the hawks were right, they could now go ahead with their brave new world, no longer hamstrung by the pinko wimps. Whichever side did better would soon attract most of the others to join them. It's the quick way to prove who is really on the right side.

property as a concept

2005-08-18T21:41:00.000+01:00

In a recent post, I said the Temple Mount has no dollar value if the only people who want it (group A) have no interest in buying or selling. But if someone else (group B) wants to buy it, that creates a trading value. B creates the value, so B owns that value. A opposes the very idea of trade, so they cannot be said to create any trading value - they actively oppose it! This may sound perverse, so let's look at it another way.

Land ownership: what is actually owned?
If nobody created a thing (e.g. land), that thing is nobody's property. But we can create agreements, whereby one person has exclusive use of that thing. To all intents and purposes we can say they "own" it, but in fact what they really "own" is our trust that they are the best people to use the thing. The different parties to the agreement (owner, neighbors, police, etc.) all create the arrangement and so its results are their property, depending on their input. Anyone who opposes agreements and tries to maintain ownership by violence just creates problems, and is responsible for the costs of those problems.

Why we cannot have land rent on private property
Back to the Temple Mount. Group 'B' created its market value, and are thus owed land rent. But what if we apply the same logic to a building that group 'A' created? If group 'A' does not want to sell, and group 'B' gives it a price, then group 'B' has again created a market value. But let us look at the wider picture. To give group 'B' its rent, society must enforce a market against the will of 'A.' This act has consequences.

Enforcing a market in land is a GOOD THING. Why? If nobody created something (e.g. land) we maximize its efficient use by enforcing competition. But enforcing a market in created goods - against the owner's will - is a BAD THING. Why? We might maximize its efficient use, but we discourage people from creating any more. In other words, we have created negative wealth. The whole reason for property is to encourage the creation of wealth. Hence property implies land rent on uncreated goods, but not taxation of created goods.

If we accept the principle that we are responsible for what we create, then everything else falls into place.

Saudi reforms

2005-08-18T08:50:00.000+01:00

A couple of days ago I revised the "land rent is inevitable" page. The old version said people would wake up one day and say "Aha! That's a good idea!" But what people think is really irrelevant. Land rent will arrive regardless of what we think or what we call it, because it is simply good business.

Today's news illustrates this fact on a governmental scale. The new Saudi king is allowing reforms. Very slowly, painfully slowly, but he is joining the World Trade Organization, and allowing just a tiny bit more dissent. This illustrates the point that powerful people WILL give up power and WILL allow choice, if it creates wealth. The bottom line is that justice creates wealth, and that is why, despite temporary setbacks, it is inevitable.

starvation in Niger

2005-08-17T07:14:00.000+01:00

Mass starvation is another price we pay for not having land rent. The principle of land rent is that you keep the wealth you create. This provides the incentive to do something, such as turning starving mouths into a productive society.

If land rent was the basis of international law, each piece of land would be owned by whoever could make best use of it. As a result, there would be no deserts (except for aesthetic and biodiversity purposes), nobody would be trapped in a failing system, there would be no unemployment, and certainly no starvation. Or maybe we prefer the present system?

crime is the price we pay

2005-08-16T08:56:00.000+01:00

Today's news features various crimes, or fear of crime. Ending crime is simple. Let each person choose their own government. Then each person will have the culture they want, and will be happy to have all the surveillance they need, and so crime will be impossible. It's that simple. But instead, we have a system where everyone is forced to live with rules they don't want. And crime is the price we pay.