Issue 76 – Summer 2002

Economic Monitor Summer 2002 Issue 76 One World, One We a l t h £ 2 . 0 0 Standing for Justice ecent months have seen a sudden seeing most of the benefits disappear that governed land ownership and land Rburgeoning in interest in the into the hands of absentee landowners. value the key to economic justice and to collection of land values for public civilisation itself. For A n d r e, civilisationw purposes. In London, the land value o add fuel to the fire, a new book, was a matter of understanding and gains from the completion of the T(reviewed on page 11), shows that living by a few simple principles. T h e underground railway’s Jubilee Line some 90% of the United Kingdom is in principles were essentially Christian, extension are estimated to be worth, at fact owned by only 189,000 families, drawn from the Old and New capital values, some three times the leaving the remaining 59 million of the Testaments, but there was room for the cost of building the extension. But population to share the rest. great philosophers and a place even for private landowners are the largest Karl Marx with whose writings he was beneficiaries of the public investment. familiar by the time he was eighteen. This has led to serious questioning ut it was the American economist, about the potential for harnessing land BHenry George, who gave him the value gains to fund the proposed philosophic but practical outlook which London Crossrail development which guided his adult life. George’s writings will eventually link Heathrow in the We s t showed him how it was possible for the with the expanding Stratford rail centre fullness of civilised life to be available to in East London and through there to the everyone, and filled him with a noble Channel Tunnel and Europe. vision of the possibilities that civilisation holds for every human being. At the same time, the East London Borough of Hackney has seen sudden Andrew MacLaren was born of Irish rises in property values with the descent in one of the poorer parts of announcement of the proposed East Glasgow in 1883, the year that Karl London railway line. More gains are Marx died and John Maynard Keynes expected as far away as Croydon in the was born. His upbringing was hard, south and Wimbledon in the south west though not desperate. At fourteen he as the full implications of the project are C o - i n c i d e n t a l l y, November became an apprentice engineer, but r e a l i s e d . 2001 saw the publication of Standing even by then his father and grandfather For Justice, the autobiography of had ensured that he was familiar with Meanwhile, in Liverpool, the Liberal Andrew MacLaren one time Labour MP the teachings of Newman, the Democrat city council has endorsed a for Burslem and a life-long advocate of speeches of Gladstone and the music plan for a pilot scheme to examine the the collection of land values for public of Mozart and Haydn. By then too, he potential for re-assessing the uniform purposes. Andrew MacLaren was one had developed a love of art which business rate according to land values. of the founding fathers of the School of stayed with him all his life. He saw Economic Science, whose early these things as the proper inheritance n Edinburgh a plan by local meetings took place in rooms booked of all mankind. Ibusinessmen to re-open the derelict by him at the Palace of South Suburban Line is to be funded We s t m i n s t e r e took practical guidance from mainly by developing land and buildings This publication is particularly HMoses Maimonides: ‘(The adjacent to the line itself. Elsewhere in appropriate at a time when the meaning w o r k m as) n wages’ should be paid Scotland serious questions are being and values of western civilisation are without delay, and they must not be raised as to how local populations can under such close examination and so wronged in any of their rights; they must benefit from the use of the estates on open to doubt, because A n d r e w receive their pay according to their which they live and work instead of MacLaren saw in the economic laws work’. He adopted and lived by the Autumn 2002 courses and events – see back page School of Economic Science principle ‘… it is the function of the to the exclusion of others to return to intellect to discriminate between true the community through the tax system and false – a distinction which is the benefit they derived from their Standing for Justice applicable to all objects of intellectual exclusive use of the common resource. p e r c e p t i o n ’ . They were fully entitled to benefit from their own work and from any e drew from his religious and improvements they made to the land – Hphilosophic studies a deep and and even to benefit from the work of abiding love of mankind. He saw in others if they could organise and direct every fumbling instrumentalist a it eff i c i e n t l y. potential concert musician; in every stuttering infant a future Shakespeare; There was no need to disturb existing in every artisan a struggling artist; and property rights. It could be done by in every human being a core of simple assessing the annual rental value of goodness. land and levying the tax accordingly. He saw all this in the meanest streets hat such a simple and elegant of Glasgow. But he also saw it stifled by Tsolution to injustice and exploitation p o v e ,r t byy want of education and should be the source of generations of A Biography of above all by injustice. It was to the roots controversy and hostility is a testament Andrew McLaren MP of this injustice that his attention was to the strength of the vested interests it by John Stewart drawn by the work of Henry George. challenged. That in the face of such controversy and hostility, a man could As a young man in the United States, hold to his ideal and fight for it with Shepheard-Walwyn Henry George witnessed the huge eloquence and passion, and without ISBN 0 85683194 8 technological advances which made regard for his own political or personal £18.95 hard back industry far more productive than ever advancement, is a testament to the before. He looked forward to a calibre of the man himself. It is also an Available from: manhood in which it would not be example which, if followed, would Shepheard Walwyn LTD necessary to work so hard to earn a transform modern political life. Suite 604, The Chandlery, living, where there would be time and leisure for even the poorest citizen to But economics interested him, not for 50 Westminster Bridge Rd, cultivate his mind and improve his life. its own sake but because he saw, as London SE1 7QY When it did not happen, he wanted to John Maynard Keynes put it, that Tel: 020 7721 7666 know why, and he found the answer in ‘economists are not the custodians of Fax: 020 7721 7667 a simple observation. civilisation, but of the possibility of e-mail: books@shepheard- civilisation’. He would have welcomed walwyn.co.uk Every human being draws life from the the renewed debate, and would have or from the School bookshop : Wholesale Bookshop land surface of the planet. Our food regarded the financing of infrastructure School of Economic Science comes from it, all the materials we use projects as a perfectly valid application Sarum Chase for clothing and shelter come from it. of the economic principles he 23 West Heath Rd We are dependent on it for a place to a d v o c a t e d . NW3 7UU [email protected] stand, a place to stay and a place to work. Henry George saw that the land But he would also have seen it as a surface of the planet was being distraction from the real point, which is carefully parceled up and sold, usually to replace an unjust economic system to the owners of businesses who used with a just one. He once said: The Economic Monitor their monopoly position as landowners apologises for the recent to exploit the working population and "The wonderful discoveries and interruption in publication reduce wages to a minimum. inventions of our century have not really increased wages nor removed occasioned mainly by his was the supreme injustice – to the shadowing hand of poverty. T h e the still incomplete move Tdispossess the large portion of e fectf has simply been to make the few from Queensgate to mankind from their birthright of a place richer and the many more helpless. But Mandeville Place. to live and work and a share in the if, while there is time, we turn to Justice bounty of nature. Andrew MacLaren, and obey her, if we trust Liberty and Normal service will be like Henry George, fought against this follow her, the danger that now injustice with consistent determination threatens must disappear, and the resumed with the throughout his entire adult life and forces that now menace will turn to Autumn edition due at political career. agencies of elevation." the end of September. Their solution was simple. All that was He would have had no hesitation in necessary was for those who held land saying the same now.

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