[GDC_row][GDC_column size=”quarter”] Stranger
[/GDC_column][GDC_column size=”three-quarters”] This looks like a nice country
[/GDC_column][/GDC_row]
[GDC_row][GDC_column size=”quarter”] Resident
[/GDC_column][GDC_column size=”three-quarters”] Yes, we do some things very well. [/GDC_column][/GDC_row]
[GDC_row][GDC_column size=”quarter”] Stranger
[/GDC_column][GDC_column size=”three-quarters”] Only some? [/GDC_column][/GDC_row]
[GDC_row][GDC_column size=”quarter”] Resident
[/GDC_column][GDC_column size=”three-quarters”] Well our tax system is a disaster
[/GDC_column][/GDC_row]
[GDC_row][GDC_column size=”quarter”] Stranger
[/GDC_column][GDC_column size=”three-quarters”] Oh dear! What is the tax rate on wages for example?
[/GDC_column][/GDC_row]
LAND REFORM achievements on Taiwan have attracted widespread attention. Countries of Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America have sent representatives to make on-the-spot inspections or have requested cooperation and the dispatch of Chinese personnel to help them solve their land problems. Foreign visitors have shown a keen interest in our program. Consequently, it is hoped that these pages will make a small contribution to better understanding of Taiwan land reform and serve as a reference for those who want to carry out similar projects.
A study of Chinese history for the last 2,000 years shows recurring pattern s of war and peace. Many causes may be listed, but the most important is inability to maintain a proper balance between land and population for any length of time. Whenever population increased to a point where land was insufficient, violent uprisings broke out and civil wars ensued. But with resulting reduction of population and restoration of the land-population equilibrium, another period of social and political stability would begin. Lasting peace and stability are not possible until this vicious cycle has been ended.
ABSTRACT. Land ownership, as commonly understood today, originated with the enclosure movement during the English Tudor era almost four centuries ago. Karl Polanyi referred to this “propertization” of nature as the “great transformation.” That land, water, and air was a social commons is now archaic and forgotten, and with it the classical economic concept of rent, which was, in theory, once paid to royalty as the earth’s guardian. Garrett Hardin’s article, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” raised alarm about the abuse and loss of this realm, and he recommended constraints and privatization to prevent this. Most people view titles to landed property much as they do their household goods, but Henry George saw that the earth should be seen as a common resource and its value taxed to benefit everyone. This would restore economic equilibrium to market exchanges and pay for government services. The capture of natural resource rents can supplant taxes on wages and capital goods, and it comports with all textbook principles of sound tax theory. This policy can be the modern replacement for the commons, and implementing resource rent capture is both economically and technically feasible.
Garrett Hardin’s Lament
Almost 50 years ago, Science Magazine published ecologist Garrett Hardin’s (1968) article “The Tragedy of the Commons,” now arguably the most widely cited and reprinted scientific article in recent history. As both history and parable, it purported to show how unattended and unprotected natural resources were exploited and ultimately destroyed by villagers in 16th-century Tudor England. The context was the enclosure movement that drove peasants off the land into the cities and provided cheap labor for the ensuing Industrial Revolution. “The commons” was well understood as the shared land, usually pasture, that provided the space for grazing animals (Polanyi 1944). Hardin recounted in metaphoric terms an explanation of an ecological history of resource overshoot that has since been replicated countless times over.
The EU began as a noble concept. Unfortunately, it has consistently got the economics wrong, thereby sowing the seeds of its ultimate disintegration. The EU gave us VAT, CAP, a tariff wall and expensive food. It would be difficult to conceive of a worse combination, apart from capping them with a common currency. Bearing in mind that all taxes apart from LVT amplify the effects of locational disadvantage, it is not surprising that support for Brexit came from the country’s margins, not excluding parts of the South-East. This is not to suggest that those who voted to leave were making a reasoned and calculated choice. At that level it was a gut reaction, with nasty overtones. However, if one neglects one’s back garden, weeds will grow. Some, such as knotweed, can undermine a house. The UK has neglected its fringes for many decades.
The first of the ugly sisters is VAT.
Older people will remember the queues at customs when returning to the UK from abroad, asked if they had “Anything to declare?”. It is the EU wide VAT that has made it possible to do away with this unpleasant ritual. However, it replaced one bad tax with another. Purchase taxes promoted cross-border shopping and created the artificial crime of smuggling. VAT facilitated cross-border trading, but at a terrible cost. The EU requires it to be set at a minimum of 15%, apart from special exemptions. Contributions to the EU are based on a notional VAT yield, on the assumption that aggregate VAT is an indication of the size of a country’s economy.
Exit from the EU opens up the possiblity of some quick wins, sometimes referred to as “low-hanging fruit”.
One of the most malign features of the EU’s economic and fiscal policies is VAT. Governments can not reduce it below 15% or abolish it or replace it with a different sales tax or a different tax altogether. It is regressive and expensive to administer, especially for small business because of the amount of paperwork it causes. It is also vulnerable to fraud and avoidance. It adds to the government’s welfare bill as money has to be paid to the poorest people so they can pay it back to the government in tax. EU membership has prevented any discussion of the subject. Debate is always shut down with the killer statement that it cannot be changed. It is an important factor in the throwaway economy as it is charged on repairs, even to buildings. The issue has never been raised at EU level, not even by Green politicians.
Current economic analysis and theory pays little attention to the actual locations in which economic activity is taking place. The benefits of a particular location include factors such as inherent fertility or proximity to natural resources, but the largest factor in a trading economy is that the work of the whole community confers a great advantage on particular locations. If individuals, firms or nations are allowed to claim this for themselves the result is a large, unfair and ever increasing disparity in wealth, unemployment and civil unrest. This article introduces a quantified analysis of the economic potential of the major countries in Europe. It describes how these changed with the formation of the EEC and subsequently the EU, and shows how this effect provides riches for some and condemns others to poverty. The paper also describes how this unfair advantage is exacerbated by the Euro. Finally some possible solutions to correct this error and provide an equal opportunity for all to prosper will be outlined.
Map 1 Europe pre treaty of Rome
Origin and Development
The original work on Location Theory is accredited to Von Thunen (1783-1850) a north German academic with formal scientific training and practical experience as a farmer. He was interested in whether there was a natural location for particular forms of endeavour. For the next century these ideas were developed in North America, especially with a view to determining the best location for new industries. In the 1950’s Prof. Colin Clark was introduced to these ideas and he developed them further. He implemented a major project to determine the effect on the UK manufacturing industries of joining the EEC and the results of which are outlined here.
The government of Finland is planning to be the first European country to provide to each adult citizen a basic income, replacing its existing welfare, social security, and unemployment payments. A pilot program is planned for November 2016, to be implemented by the Finnish Social Insurance Institution.
The replacement of qualified welfare payments with funds not related to any income, employment, disability, or age status was proposed in 1962 by the free-market economist Milton Friedman, as a negative income tax. It was partly implemented by the US federal government as an “earned income tax credit”. A basic income does not depend on the tax code, and eliminates the negative incentive of getting money by qualifying as poor, disabled, or unemployed.
New Model of the Economy is without a doubt a work of monumental proportions. I say this not lightly: This work deserves my wholehearted endorsement. Written in the tradition of the School of Economic Science in London, which traces its lineage back to economic giants such as Henry George (many of whom, like George, were marginalized from mainstream economic thought due to resistance from wealthy interests), this book presents as rational and as clear a theory of economic prosperity for the whole of society as I’ve ever seen. You cannot help but agree with its conclusions, since they are not only based on a sound and logical framework, but are also explained with a healthy dose of common sense.
We are grateful for this example of land appropriation, and at the end will add our comments on how the proper collection of public revenue would bring justice.
– an exploration of land ownership through contemporary art.
Introduction
StoreyG2 is a small contemporary art organisation based in Lancaster, in north west England. In 2014-15 we ran a project researching land ownership and its effects on people’s lives. “Landed (Freeman’s Wood)” is centred on a plot of land where the interests of a local community collided with those of global capital.
I begin with a quotation from Aristotle’s Politics:
“And it is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of good and evil, of just and unjust, and the like, and the association of living beings who have this sense makes a family and a state.”
― Aristotle, Politics Book I Chapter II
It is worth pondering what this is saying. The human species is distinguished from all the other species because it alone has a sense of what is good and evil, and a sense of what is just and unjust.
