Category Archives: Georgist education

Margaret Bateman, Wartime Leader of the Henry George School

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by Edward J. Dodson

Some years ago as I was slowly building a biographical history of the Georgist movement, I came across a 24-page book titled Whose World, written in 1944 by Margaret E. Bateman. It was clear to me that she was a knowledgeable follower of Henry George, familiar with many of the leading lights of the Georgist movement around the world. Later, I would learn that the book was published by the Henry George School in New York and that Margaret Bateman then the Director of the school. Continue reading …

Global Resources

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by Lindy Davies

Excerpted from a chapter in Rent As Public Revenue: Issues and Methods

A great many people have come to believe that society really must get serious about climate change. Although skeptics complain about the conjectural nature of “the science” on this issue, it is generally recognized that we cannot be 100% certain about long-term global processes. No one knows for sure how severe the consequences of unchecked greenhouse-gas warming will be, or when things will start to get really bad. However, the probable effects of climate change are sobering. Continue reading …

Why We Can’t Tax Land Values Down to Zero

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by Polly Cleveland

Georgists often claim that we can and should tax land values down to zero, or almost zero. However, this claim depends on ignoring how taxes are spent. As Mason Gaffney has shown, All Taxes Come Out of Rent (ATCOR) — including bad taxes like sales taxes. Moreover, all deadweight loss or “Excess Burden Comes Out of Rent” or EBCOR. Less obviously, all subsidies and spillovers from public investments go into rent, call this ASGIR. Let’s take three examples to follow the implications. Continue reading …

A Few Questions for Mason Gaffney

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We thought this might be an opportune time to check in with the eminently sane Prof. Mason Gaffney at his home in Redlands, California. The author of The Corruption of Economics, After the Crash: Designing a Depression-Free Economy and The Mason Gaffney Reader (as well as hundreds of published papers and articles: see masongaffney.org )has slowed down a little, perhaps, but not awfully much. Continue reading …

Charting the Costs of Land Speculation

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by Lindy Davies

The familiar “Law of Rent Chart” first appeared in print in the 1915 book by Louis F. Post, The Taxation of Land Values. The chart shows the simple fact that different locations offer different productive potentials — and that the wealth the average producer can create, and keep, on the free land represents the alternative return for producers everywhere. Continue reading …

Land: A New Paradigm for a Thriving World

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by Martin Adams, 2015, North Atlantic Books. Review by Edward J. Dodson

Twenty years ago I made a decision that has been nearly all-absorbing of my time and energy. I started to compile the documented history of the people who came to embrace the principles embraced by Henry George. Today, despite a considerable number of books and published academic papers on the history of the movement established by Henry George and his generation of stalwart supporters, few people in any country one might name know the movement lives on. Continue reading …

“Pop Quiz” Results and Analysis

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popquizby Lindy Davies

The following quiz was handed out to participants at the Detroit conference We received 29 completed quizzes — not a bad turnout for such a heady exercise. The number of respondents who chose each answer is shown at left. Of course, reasonable people can — and do! — disagree, but I announced at the time that in my mind, at least, each question had a correct answer. I attempt to explain my thinking on that, below. Continue reading …

The Persistent Importance of Land in the Irish Psyche

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by John Engle

Land holds a special place in the national psyche of the Irish people. Henry George recognized this fact through his involvement in the Irish Land League movement in America, and during a period spent as a correspondent writing from Ireland. He recognized in the plight of the Irish the plight of all peoples kept from free access to land. Continue reading …