Brad,
Catching up with the back mail I marked 'interesting'.
You said:
'Your "economic rent" looks to me like a constraint on the "free
market" by the collaborative social intelligence of the
community. A guided market?'
Nothing so complicated. It is said that only the complicated can
understand the simple. You are complicated enough to understand
the simple. Remember William of Ockham and slough off the
unnecessary.
Economic Rent is the name given to the community created value
that attaches to a location. (Modern economists without so much
as a 'by your leave' have changed its meaning - I would say to no
good purpose.)
Rent happens by virtue of the community without them individually
having anything to do with it.
Unfortunately, Land Rent is not under the control of the market
price mechanism (as are the other two Factors of Production -
Labor and Capital) so the amount charged by a landholder to a
tenant is not Rent, but an ever increasing rack-rent that cuts
into Wages and impoverishes those at the bottom of the Wage
pyramid.
Now, the fact that rack-rents can increase to take everything not
necessary to keep Labor alive (technically - and reproducing)
makes speculation in these price increases inevitable. Land
speculation is an extraordinary drag on production and is the
major reason why our cities are in such a mess. (You may recall
those mid-century figures I reported in which 79% of Metro New
York was "unimproved for urban use". Roads, alleys, parks were
all considered improved.)
Modern economists, who have forgotten that the job of scientists
is to simplify things, have a hundred ways to improve the cities
and none of them work because they endlessly and unnecessarily
complicate what is a simple problem.
The only 'collaborative restraint' in this sorry situation is the
ignorance of the community. They haven't a clue about these
basics even though they may have seriously learned about
'disintermediation' in their economics classes - if they had
them.
But you are perceptive as you remark:
" Am I wrong in speculating that "land" may be a METAPHOR ("pars
pro toto" -- a part standing for the whole) for all the things
that constitute "the commons" (ref. Garrett Hardin)?"
Imagination is a great tool when examining humanity. The
Classical Analysts took Man and all his works off the earth. What
was left they labeled "Land". So "Land" stands in for all Natural
Resources. It seemed pretty obvious to them that no person has
more right to these Natural Resources (Land) than another, which
I think is better way to put it than saying we have an equal
right to them.
In the pursuit of my ongoing campaign to irritate everyone,
Georgists are by no means exempt. I have refined the basic terms
to make them more appropriate without losing their uniqueness. A
few ardent Georgists have taken umbrage at this amending of the
Master's words, but he said "in nothing trust to me" along with
"think for yourself" - not bad admonitions.
We cannot survive without land. From land comes our sustenance -
our source of all things. Henry George in 1878 perhaps coined a
new term when he said that the earth is like a ship sailing
through space. If we need anything, all we need do is to open a
hatch and take what we want. Was he the first to use "space
ship"?
What he said is true enough, but the people sitting on the
hatches and charging us a fee to open them (or refusing to open
them) become rather important.
If ethically we hold the earth in common it behooves us to work
out ways to use our property for the good of us all without
erecting costly and inefficient bureaucracies, but also without
depriving us of our common right. I have earlier suggested to you
how this may be done, maintaining our rights while allowing
private firms efficiently to operate the system.
For example, don't privatize water. Keep ownership of the system,
while allowing private bidders to operate it. Maintain ownership
of the resource, while creating an efficient operation.
This perhaps sets the position of the Georgist. The right would
hand over our birthright to favored individuals, the left would
keep it even as its use became ever more inefficient (as Keith
has so often reported).
We would keep our common ownership while running it efficiently.
Alaska has a policy that approaches this idea. Alaskans get an
annual share of their oil resources, though it's extracted
privately.
Alberta for decades has enjoyed a similar policy of allowing
private firms to extract the people's oil for which they pay
royalties.
Hardin based his ideas on the English commons. As I've said, they
worked pretty well, right up to the point when they were stolen.
However, he did bring to our attention the concept of the commons
- even though they aren't a tragedy. Our handling of them is.
Harry
********************************************
Henry George School of Social Science
of Los Angeles
Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042
Tel: 818 352-4141 -- Fax: 818 353-2242
http://haledward.home.comcast.net
********************************************
-----Original Message-----
From: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 4:14 PM
To: Harry Pollard
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Taxing land - not people (was -
E.European Women discover the Joys of Free Trade)
Harry Pollard wrote:
> Arthur,
>
> Let me first define economic rent. It is " the extrinsic
> community created value that attaches to a location".
>
> Economic rent is a consequence of the surrounding community.
> Collecting and giving it back to the community that produced it
> seems to be a perfectly fair proposition.
[snip]
This strikes me as interesting and possibly appealing (at
least insofar as we still live in "an economy of scarcity").
Your "economic rent" looks to me like a constraint
on the "free market" by the collaborative social intelligence
of the community. A guided market?
Am I wrong in speculating that "land" may be a METAPHOR
("pars pro toto" -- a part standing for the whole) for
all the things that constitute "the commons" (ref. Garrett
Hardin)?
Speaking of which, whatever happened to the person
whose website was(still is?) www.dieoff.org??? (You there???)
\brad mccormick
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