an old & wise idea: make land common property
If you've not had occasion to read Henry George recently, I commend his ideas to your attention. A diverse and interesting range of wise people have recognized the sanity and justice, not to mention the efficiency, of the reform he proposed in "Progress and Poverty" (1879).
A modern abridgement is online at http://www.progressandpoverty.org/. You can read more about George's ideas at http://www.wealthandwant.com/ and http://lvtfan.typepad.com, and many other websites.
His ideas and his remedy have the potential to put us well on the road to solving some of our most serious and supposedly intractable problems -- poverty, sprawl, unaffordable housing, low wages, joblessness, wealth concentration, income concentration. As John Dewey said, we aren't going to solve these problems without enacting George's reform.
And by "land" George was referring not just to locations, but also to natural resources and many things the Classical economists never saw, but would immediately recognize as land: geosynchronous orbits, electromagnetic spectrum,water rights, parking rights, access to congested cities, etc. Economists as diverse as Vickrey, Friedman and Harriss have pointed us in the direction of collecting the economic rent, the value of natural and community-created resources. While not new, this aspect of economics has been skipped over by the neoclassical economists, and a couple generations of PhD students and undergrads have never heard it.
See also the work of Mason Gaffney -- http://www.masongaffney.org/ and Fred Foldvary.
Resource Based Economy
We would like you to consider the ramifications of a Resouce Based Economy. The website is www.thevenusproject.com
Inequality = Crime, Social Stratification, Corruption, Greed, Distrust, Scarcity, Pollution, Waste, Illusion of Infinite Growth, Depletion of resources, Elitism, Products with Planned Obsolessence, War for Profit and Resources, Corporatist Government, Plutocracy, Decisions being MADE, False Democracy (Did the American people vote for the bailout bill?)
Equality = Trust, Wellbeing, Dignity, Unleashing Human Potential, True Holistic Education, Planet Care, Intelligent Resource Management, Peace, Understanding, Cooperation, True Freedom, Products made to last or to have components changed as technology progresses made of the best materials for everyone resulting in no waste, Decisions are ARRIVED AT, True Democracy based on elections of ideas instead of non technical, powerhungry people.
Some Good Georgist Websites (w/ very inexpensive online courses)
Understanding Economics http://www.henrygeorge.org/
Applied Economics: Globalization and Trade http://www.truefreetrade.org/
Economic Science http://politicaleconomy.org/
How about the Basics?
Beyond high tech resources. I would suggest concentrating on the basics.
First would be a list of logical fallacies. With the loss of classical education, the logical thought process of modern scientists has greatly deteriorated. This leads to the single most common error in modern economics. The non-sequitor of confusing correlation with causation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy
http://www.logicalfallacies.info/
I would also suggest that all members read Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolution, which outlines precisely why we have to take a radical new approach to analyzing economics.
it's time to start new discussions...
... and leave the fights behind. to understand some of the current problems, it helps to take a look at what happened in the last years.
Stability. Stable Foundations
1. 'Boom and Bust' by Fred Harrison. Fred was one of only 12 found by the University of Utrecht to have forecast the crisis accurately.
See also his YouTubes under 'Renegade Economist'
2. James Robertson at www. jamesrobertson.com, and his books.
3. Benjamin Graham, 'Storage and Stability'- Appreciated by Keynes, Kaldor, Hayek etc, but his measures were thrown out by Congress.
The conference of the Institute of New Economic Thinking at Kings Cambridge was indeed wonderful, a real breath of fresh air, but although I listened to most of the papers, attention did not go back far enough to satisfy - they did not reach the root of the recurring troubles.
Above are three leads, to three reforms, that tackle causal government mistakes, but did not get a mention at Kings.
James Galbraith's comment are worth repeating:
"The point is not to argue endlessly with Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
The point is to move past them toward the garden that must be out there, that in fact is out there, somewhere."
If you are sufficiently patient, wait for 'Three Reforms to Consider, and Ask For'
a book to spell out the three basic means for decent governments to stabilise economies, at their foundation.
Controls are needed, but tweeked controls will continue to struggle with the inevitable consequences of neglected causes.
All three measures are now long overdue.
Best wishes, Haydon Bradshaw
http://www.globalresearch.ca
This is another interesting one:
Connecting economic theories with reality
As I am an engineer I am constantly suprised at the acceptance of economic theories. Theories that are not tested nor need to be related to reality as it seems.
I have thus put together some criticism of economic thoughts in a manuscript I call "True Wealth of Nations". The manuscript can be found here:
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/true-wealth-of-nations/10281642
It is a set of new ways to think about wealth and how it is created. True wealth as compared to mere money.
It should be possible to download the manuscript for free. If you have problems with that please just contact me.
Monetary Reform - seigniorage reform
See: www.jamesrobertson.com/ www.bendyson.com/
In the 19th century the BoE gradually won a monopoly of printing bank notes. Now most money is in the form of credit. These proposals for reform aim to give central banks the monopoly of creating money as credit. This trick is managed by treating sight deposits with commercial banks as deposits with the central bank but managed by commercial banks.
I think that perhaps the greatest benefit is that money creation could be made counter cyclical. This proposal will not go down well with bankers but... At least it ought to be debated by serious economists.
For what it's worth I am not an economist but it seems to me that any theory that assumes economic systems tend to equilibrium is of limited use - especially since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchnge rates with attendent capital controls. Is it not time to revisit Keynes original proposal (1942) for an international clearing union in which current a/c imbalances are settled in a new international currency. See Skidelsky's biography of Keynes.
Evolution of Labour in the economy
ere is a link in relation to a book that is a "Must read" in view of some already observable trends in the evolution of the labour market and its predictable impact on future economic growth and society organisation at large...
http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/
This book is available here:
The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future (Volume 1) by Martin Ford (Paperback - Sept. 22, 2009)
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_24?url=search-alias%3Dstripbook...
Paul
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