Fred Harrison has been voted into the finals of The Non-fiction section of the People’s Book Prize and so gone through to the next round of voting to select the winner. Voting for the Winner is open from 21st – 29th May. The Prize will be awarded at a gala dinner in Stationers Hall in the City of London on 29th May with Frederick Forsyth presenting the Prize. Click here to register to vote for Fred Harrison and view reader comments on The Traumatised Society.

In an interview with Marcin Gerwin of the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia Polly Higgins, author of Eradicating Ecocide and Earth is our Business, explained why it is necessary to have an international law making it a criminal offence to damage or destroy the environment. To read the full interview, click here.

“To discover of the conditions which allow every individual to find a fulfilling life is the true goal of Economics”

In The Science of Economics Raymond Makewell presents the three-year Economics course prepared by Leon MacLaren for the School of Economic Science in London in the late 1960s. Revised with contemporary, international examples, the core material remains the same.

MacLaren (1910–1994) was a barrister, politician, philosopher and (with the aid of his father, a Member of Parliament) founder of the School of Economic Science in 1937 when the world was struggling to emerge from the Great Depression. In 1939 he was selected to stand against Winston Churchill in the election that was cancelled by the outbreak of war.

Had the election not been cancelled, Churchill would have faced an awkward challenge as to why he had abandoned the principles he had so brilliantly expounded in support of Lloyd George’s People’s Budget in 1909 when he was a Liberal Cabinet Minister. These were the principles the School of Economic Science was founded to teach.

Rather like Adam Smith in his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, MacLaren took his inquiry back to first principles. Instead of making supply and demand the starting point, he begins with the simple observation that all material wealth is ultimately derived from land, and, where goods are exchanged, the first requirement is trust, or a system of credit. The major characteristics of the modern economy are examined in terms of the conditions that govern how and why they evolved and how they operate today. Particular attention is given to the system of land tenure and the concepts of property evolved in the English-speaking world, the role of government in economic affairs, and the degree of economic freedom. This reveals how the current economic situation denies millions access to all that they need to work and produce wealth for themselves. Injustice is the inevitable result and poverty its inseparable companion.

This thesis is not only a restatement of the social price of inequality (such as Joseph Stiglitz The Price of Inequality, or Richard Wilkinson The Spirit Level).  There is something deeper: humanity has lost touch with its spiritual roots, and with the ‘covenant’ which ancient wisdom saw in the triangle of relationships between humanity, the earth and God.  – Bishop David Atkinson, Church Times

For the full review click here and go to page 23.

The Traumatised Society by Fred Harrison has been selected for the Non-fiction Spring 2013 People’s Book Prize Collection. Voting will be open until the 20^th May. If Fred Harrison gets enough votes,  he will go through to a second vote to determine the winner of the non-fiction prize between 20^th and 29^th May. To vote go to www.peoplesbookprize.co.uk.

George Monbiot began an article in the Guardian ‘You can learn as much about a country from its silences as you can from its obsessions. The issues politicians do not discuss are as telling and decisive as those they do … the loudest silence surrounds the issue of property taxes … the simplest, fairest and least avoidable levy is one that the major parties simply will not contemplate. It’s called land value tax. The term is a misnomer. It’s not really a tax. It’s a return to the public of the benefits we have donated to the landlords. When land rises in value, the government and the people deliver a great unearned gift to those who happen to own it.’ Click here for the full article.

In 1909 Winston Churchill explained the issue in a remarkable speech which pointed out, as Adam Smith and many others have, that those who own the land skim wealth from everyone else, without exertion or enterprise.

The history of the Liberal government’s attempt to introduce the land value tax is described in The People’s Budget and Labour’s later attempt in Standing for Justice.

In the Guardian on New Year’s Eve, the economics correspondent, Phillip Inman, wrote:

Why, when the UK economy is in a dreadful state, with its core lending banks strapped for cash, would anyone in their right mind think property prices could rise? But as Fred Harrison, research director of the London-based Land Research Trust, points out in his new book, The Traumatised Society, rent-seeking by a wealthy class of people hooked on accumulating even greater wealth is the cancer that has brought down many more civilisations than the present one.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Monetary Fund and the Institute for Fiscal Studies have in the past couple of years concluded that only an annual tax on land can end the obsession with property. Once landowners face a tax, they will free up land they are sitting on, rather than wait for a rising market to make a killing.

Leon MacLaren (1910–1994) was a barrister, politician, philosopher and the founder of the School of Economic Science. He considered the true goal of Economics to be the discovery of the conditions which allow every individual to find a fulfilling life. In his view, science was a study of laws that exist in nature, whilst economics was a study of the humanities, with the interaction of human nature and the natural universe at its heart.

MacLaren defined economics as ‘the study of the natural laws which govern the relationships between people in society’.

This book is based on a three-year course prepared by MacLaren for the School of Economic Science in London in the late 1960s. The editor, Raymond Makewell, presents the original subject matter revised with more recent examples and statistics from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and USA.

Instead of making supply and demand the starting point, it begins with the simple observation that all material wealth is ultimately derived from land, and, where goods are exchanged the first requirement is trust, or a system of credit. From this starting point the major characteristics of the modern economy such as banking, companies or corporations, international trade, taxation and trade cycles are examined in terms of the conditions that govern how and why they evolved and how they operate today.

The framework in which the economy operates is examined in terms of how the system of land tenure and the concepts of property evolved in the English-speaking world, the role of government in economic affairs, and the degree of economic freedom. This reveals how the current economic situation denies people access to all that they need to work and produce wealth for themselves.

Injustice is the inevitable result and poverty its inseparable companion.

BackHome Pictures of Los Angeles are planning  a feature film on the life of Henry George the author of Progress and Poverty.  For more information click here

Unfortunately Finance Minister, Michael Noonan, ignored the advice in his Budget statement last week.  To read the full review click here and turn to page 39.