I lied
I lied when I said we weren't doing anything exciting until Cat arrives next Saturday. I had in fact forgotten a) that I was attending an Economics course brought to my attention by a strange advert in the paper and b) that it was Sean's birthday.
A few weeks ago in the Sydney Morning Herald there was an advert stating "Economics for those seeking social justice - a four week course" run by the "Association for Good Government". Sean pointed it out to me as I am interested in that kind of thing and said I should go along. There was another advert for a one-day course with the same people about why housing is unaffordable, which seemed a bit odd.
I went straight to Google and looked up this "Association for Good Government". It seems that they basically pass on the teachings of a mid-19th century American economist called Henry George. In went "Henry George" to Google.
It turns out that his main theory was that all wealth derives from land and so we should abolish all taxes in favour of a single tax on land. (The wikipedia entry is here.) He also seems to have travelled extensively round Australia leaving endowments to teach his theories. Everything becomes clear.
This is a theory that has been clearly discredited by modern economic theory but I went along to see if I could find out anything interesting or useful. I got a booklet for the first week, which went through Ricardo's theory of rent and an explanation of why land central to a community is more valuable than land at the periphery or outside it (e.g. you pay more rent for a coffee shop inside Liverpool St Station that you do in the country). So far, not too controversial, although the guy running the course didn't explain things very well and I think he may have completely confused people who hadn't come across Ricardo's theory of rent before.
I can't go next week so I got the next booklet in advance - it definitely looks like he is heading towards a tax on the "surplus value" of land. I am suspicious of whether he is even going to try to explain how this could relieve poverty but it is a question I shall be asking if I go the week after next. It will be interesting to see how many people are still there....
I lied when I said we weren't doing anything exciting until Cat arrives next Saturday. I had in fact forgotten a) that I was attending an Economics course brought to my attention by a strange advert in the paper and b) that it was Sean's birthday.
A few weeks ago in the Sydney Morning Herald there was an advert stating "Economics for those seeking social justice - a four week course" run by the "Association for Good Government". Sean pointed it out to me as I am interested in that kind of thing and said I should go along. There was another advert for a one-day course with the same people about why housing is unaffordable, which seemed a bit odd.
I went straight to Google and looked up this "Association for Good Government". It seems that they basically pass on the teachings of a mid-19th century American economist called Henry George. In went "Henry George" to Google.
It turns out that his main theory was that all wealth derives from land and so we should abolish all taxes in favour of a single tax on land. (The wikipedia entry is here.) He also seems to have travelled extensively round Australia leaving endowments to teach his theories. Everything becomes clear.
This is a theory that has been clearly discredited by modern economic theory but I went along to see if I could find out anything interesting or useful. I got a booklet for the first week, which went through Ricardo's theory of rent and an explanation of why land central to a community is more valuable than land at the periphery or outside it (e.g. you pay more rent for a coffee shop inside Liverpool St Station that you do in the country). So far, not too controversial, although the guy running the course didn't explain things very well and I think he may have completely confused people who hadn't come across Ricardo's theory of rent before.
I can't go next week so I got the next booklet in advance - it definitely looks like he is heading towards a tax on the "surplus value" of land. I am suspicious of whether he is even going to try to explain how this could relieve poverty but it is a question I shall be asking if I go the week after next. It will be interesting to see how many people are still there....
posted by Zoe at 5:18 PM
4 Comments:
To be fair, Henry George's theory of land rent has been acknowledged as basically sound by many academic economists, including a number of Nobel-prize laureates. Henry George does not state that "all wealth comes from land" in any real sense; rather, he claims that a sizeable portion of wealth _does_ accrue to land, and there's a prima facie case that goverments should look first to tapping this wealth as a source of revenue, rather than levying a financial penalty on human labor and exertion. From this point of view, his claims are quite consistent with modern economic theory.
Hi
Who are you?
Do you belong to one of these Australian Henry George socities?
I have some interest in George's views, but I'm not a member of any promotion society. I only posted here because while George has certainly received little academic interest, the idea that his theories have been debunked by modern economics struck me as quite curious. I can't understand where it's coming from.
Um. Who are you? How did you find our blog? If you post with an email address I'd be happy to dicuss Henry George's theories over email.
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