Pace

To help the poor cannot be the solution, we must prevent poverty! Only to propose redistribution and charity is a declaration of bankruptcy by an economist. Charity as a moral / religious commandment is good, but it should not be necessary. Where charity is needed, except for the disabled, there is no justice.
Landlessness is obviously an important reason for poverty. And the distribution of land as it is in most countries is the most flagrant injustice. I am glad that David Chester contributed a „co-paper“ to stress the importance of the land question and the injustice of our prevailing order.
But an equitable land order alone cannot solve the problem of poverty. David Chester maintains that the land value tax could solve the problem of „lack of opportunity to work and earn“. Keynes, however, has pointed to flaws in our monetary order which are at the root of an „underemployment equilibrium“. The denial of access to work and income has primarily monetary reasons. This is the message of Keynes.
Clearer than Keynes Nobel laureate Maurice Allais analyzed our monetary order, and more consistent than Keynes he deduced a thorough reform of it, together with a radical land reform, namely the nationalization of land. The „socialisme concurrentiel“ which he developed would combine, he said, efficiency (being a market economy) and justice (abolishing all privileges). And only through this land and monetary reform („100%-money“ and the „continuous depreciation of the circulating money“) and the prevention of monopolies, all incomes would eventually be „earned incomes“, because all rents would disappear. It should be obvious what this would mean to the poor.
Land is not the only problem for the poor – money is another one.
Walter Hanschitz-Jandl

Yes, IDRS can be calculated for different groups within a rural space, provided that data are available. Data availability, this is the main limitation of IDRS. If data are available, you can change or include parameters what how you prefer.

In response to Henry, the problem of getting agreement from land owning monopolists is much more acute in the more developed places and the government of the poorer countries should at least attempt to create a marginal-land sharing of unused sites and greater equality of opportunity for their use.

The way to cause the land to be owned by the state (as in Singapore and Hong Kong and other prosperous places which adhere to George’s principles) is by the government passing laws for its purchasing of land as soon as it is offered for sale. Its price should be the normal one, but the land does not include ownership of any buildings etc. The land is then immediately leased to the building owner (if any) and otherwise to anyone who wants to have access to it, for purposes of making better use of it. By this means speculation in land values would cease whilst the leasing fees would replace what was called a Land Value Tax, which strictly it is not (since ethically the land belongs to all of the people). Land which is bequeathed to next generations should be similarly treated due the changed ownership.

The government will need an initial loan to begin this process, after which the in coming lease fees can be used for further land purchases and loan repayments, which may require 40 years or more to completely place the responsibility and benefits of leasing of sites, completely a as national benefit.

Dear Edward K Ross.
Thank you very much.
The issue of food security should not be merely an economic discussion of supply and demand.
The theme involves people, traditions, medicine, farmers, etc.
In Brazil, although it is well known for its agriculture, there is great inequality between regions and groups of farmers.
That is, even with a large food supply, there are vulnerable people in situations of food insecurity.
Some programs as described in the text are public policies to alleviate problems of food insecurity.

Dear Maria Alejandra Madi,

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) in Ghana under Food and Agricultural Sector Development Policy (FASDEP II) has five policy objectives as follows;
1. Food Security and Emergency Preparedness
2. Increased Growth in Incomes
3. Increased Competitiveness and Enhanced Integration into Domestic and International Markets
4. Sustainable Management of Land and Environment
5. Science and Technology Applied in Food and Agriculture Development

Under these policy objectives, the ministry of food and Agriculture (MOFA) focuses on improving small scale farm production through provision of certified seeds, good agricultural practices, training small scale farmers on input use and providing access to technology and market information. However, the ministry of food and Agriculture does not reach all small scale farmers due to low levels of extension services among other reasons.

The Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) in Ghana under Food and Agricultural Sector Development Policy (FASDEP II) has five policy objectives as follows;
1. Food Security and Emergency Preparedness
2. Increased Growth in Incomes
3. Increased Competitiveness and Enhanced Integration into Domestic and International Markets
4. Sustainable Management of Land and Environment
5. Science and Technology Applied in Food and Agriculture Development

Under these policy objectives, the ministry of food and Agriculture (MOFA) focuses on improving small scale farm production through provision of certified seeds, good agricultural practices, training small scale farmers on input use and providing access to technology and market information. However, the ministry of food and Agriculture does not reach all small scale farmers due to low levels of extension services among other reasons.

Dear Maria, the question, I think, must not be what is beyond Marx but what could be beyond capitalist food relations. My intention to take Marx into food debate is precisely to suggest that new and renewal Marxists theory interpretations, for example those made from a Latin-American perspective, can be useful to (re)think food in our societies and to grasp what we are facing. A Marxist perspective is specially useful in front of false solutions, as techno-fix (as GMO`s against hunger or the Climate Smart Agriculture as climate change and food insecurity solution) but also in front of romantic solutions, as a idea of return to a past idealistic food relations. Obviously, is just a proposal and this is not the unique. In my text I recognized that the Food Regime Perspective has made important contributions to food’s debate from a critical point of view. Also here in Latin America have gained force some food sovereignty practices (As Barkin’s paper also suggest) based on peasant and indigenous practices and resistances.

Well, yes fish in nutritional terms (?) but what I tried to explain in my paper is that what is good to eat is a very more complex question that involve concerns about social relations and our relation with nature. In fact, nowadays exist some evidence of the negative effects of European increased fish demand on marine ecosystems and on the seafood exporting countries.

Dear Pedro, unfortunately I do not have information about your specific concern. The only I can offered are some thoughts about this kind of practice. Already, the food world market is one of the most concentrated markets, with few-big exporters countries but specially concentrated by big corporations. Control of fuel market, with OPEC, had several effects on capitalist economies because the central role of energetic sources. But food, is not only central to capitalist system functioning, but for human life. In History, many times, food has been used as a war’s weapon. An “Organization of food Exporting Countries”, could be beneficial for some countries, maybe Brazil and USA, but certainly could be devastating for food dependent countries as Mexico. Not only in terms in economic performances but in life quality of millions of people. to my way of thinking food must cease to be considered a commodity.

Excellent tool. What are the weakness or limitations of the Sustainable Rural Development Index?
Can IDRS be calculated for different groups within the rural space – say different ethnic groups and gender?

Dear Armando Fornazier,

Thanks. In the study area they are involved in conventional with agrochemicals production model.

There are no organic markets in the area, so the conventional is the more feasible production model.

Dear Armando Fornazier,

Thanks. In the study area they are involved in conventional with agrochemicals production model.

There are no organic markets in the area, so the conventional is the more feasible production model.

Dear Armando Fornazier,

Thanks for raising an important point. There is salt mining in the Kete Lagon which stretches to Denu.

The splilage of Keta lagoon has claimed almost 20% of farmland in Denu where salt is now being mined. Consequently, this has lead to some disagreements between community members and the Kensington Industries Limited of India who are mining the salt . It was reported that the company encroached on lands belonging to the neighboring communities in flagrant violation of the Mineral and Mining Act.

Really interesting approach to fiscal policy. Thanks for sending further references on the subject.

Maria

Dear Susan Bragdon.
Very interesting your question.
When I started to study these purchases in local agriculture, this was one of the first questions I asked myself. By chance, I saw an article that deals with why this does not violate the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The article is referenced in the text. The article is called: “Laws to require purchase of locally grown food and constitutional limits on state and local government: Suggestions for policymakers and advocates”. Follow the link: http://www.agdevjournal.com/attachments/article/115/JAFSCD_Laws_on_Locally_Grown_Food_Corrected_10-10.pdf. But, it is interesting to see that new discussions about this. Thank you very much.

Thank you for comment Henry Acquah-Graft.
I have read a few examples from other countries on public purchases from family agriculture and I quite liked the case of Ghana. There is a chapter by Professor Roberta Sonnino in the book “The School Food Revolution” which addresses the case of encouraging local production in Ghana. In the following link there is a book review: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/175174411X12810842291353?journalCode=rffc20.

Qur’an also exhorts Muslims also to spend voluntarily from their resources and give voluntary charity (Sadaqah) apart from Zakah. Many Islamic thinkers have taken note of this and have understood Zakah as an essential but not necessarily all-sufficient Islamic fiscal tool. Islamic thinkers have allowed for some welfare levies or taxes to meet the overall goals (Maqasid) of Islamic law (Shariah). The Islamic tax system is weaved around the central Islamic fiscal tool of Zakah and is structured to fill any gaps that are frustrating the goals and general design of Shariah which may persist even as Zakah is being made. In other words, Islamic taxation policy is primarily a `compensatory’ policy that acts complementary to Zakah.

In the Islamic worldview, God has allocated ownership of things to individuals but not in an unchartered manner—an individual can use his resources for his permissible benefit but not encroaching on the rights of other individuals. Islam also closes the door to social ills such as interest, hoarding, gambling that can lead to social harm. Islam, in addition, makes a number of donations compulsory. Apart from Zakah, the other compulsory levies include Ushr (tax of one-tenth on agricultural produce), Sadaqah-Fitr (Eid day charity), Qurbani or Udhiya (Sacrifice of animal on Eid-ul-Adha), and Nafaqaat (maintenance allowance). Apart from these compulsory charity avenues, Islam also has a complete inheritance system that ensures that wealth is not confined only to certain families (e.g., by allowing a dedicated share to womenfolk and mandates a share for daughters instead of only for sons). Along with these legal requirements, Islamic also develops a certain personality that is inclined away from undesirable traits (such as greed, self-centeredness, lack of compassion) and towards desirable traits (such as compassion, magnanimity, moral courage, fear of God).

A more detailed elaboration of the nuances of the fiscal policy and economic system in Islam can be seen in the following reference:

Ahmed, Z., Iqbal, M. and Khan, M.F. eds., 1983. Fiscal Policy and Resource Allocation in Islam. Institute of Policy Studies.

Our Socio Economic Order, Mufti Taqi Usmani

http://muftitaqiusmani.com/en/books/PDF/Our%20Socio-Economic%20Order/our_socio-economic_order.pdf

Indeed, an industrial food system that views food as a commodity cannot provide the necessary quantity and quality of food for everyone and will never achieve food secutiry. Beyond Marx, which be other references you suggest to enlarge the food transition debate and to develop a different narrative for our food system?

Thansk

Maria Alejandra Madi

.

Interesting paper that proposed new forms of thinking the foundations of economics. Considering the inter-relations between hunger and inequality, I would like to propose some questions for further discussion:
What sort of fiscal policy does Islamic economics advocate?
Within modern market economies and the spread of inequality and hunger, what is the Islamic view of taxation?

Thanks

Maria Alejandra Madi

Interesting paper about the challenges of samll farmers. Considering the policy implications of your research, uou conclude “The Ministry of Food and Agriculture through agricultural extension agents should educate and train farmers on the use of plastic mulch and the adoption of good agricultural practices.”.

I would like you to comment on the scope of current set of policies and programmes that are orientend to small farmers in Ghana.

Thanks

Maria Alejandra Mado

Public procurement programs that buy from farmers at above the WTO market price and sell to consumers below market price operate similarly to grain reserves. Is this/can this be in violation of WTO rules on public stockholdings, if the Member country does not qualify for the temporary exemption recently negotiated by the United States and India, which exempts grain reserves for food security that were already in place when the agreement was passed.

Does the WTO’s Global Procurement Agreement restrict local procurement initiatives and school feeding programs. Currently, the agreement is plurilateral with 19 parties covering 47 WTO members (the 28 member states of the European Union included are as one party). Most parties are industrialized countries and thus should not apply to most developing countries.

And what about newer plurilateral agreements being negotiated? As is the case with pricing policies, plurilateral trade agreements may impose additional restrictions upon contracting parties. For example, procurement contracts have been included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) text, agreed by Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US, and Vietnam in October, 2016. Signatories must give equal treatment to international companies in their domestic procurement processes.

Discussing the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) being negotiated between the US and the EU, Karen Hansen-Kuhn, the Director of International Strategies at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), points that “both the U.S. and EU, for example, support farm-to-school programs that favor locally produced foods in school lunch programs, even if the cost is somewhat higher.” According to the IATP, this also threatens local food programs, such as the Los Angeles Food Policy Council’s Good Food Purchasing Program, which seeks to get large institutions to pledge to specific food procurement procedures.

Similarly, investment protections in the TTP, the TTIP as well as bilateral investment treaties and bilateral trade agreements could undermine local or national programs to set the conditions for appropriate investments in the production of healthier, more sustainable foods for local markets. Parties to those talks should establish broad exemptions to advance food security and sustainable development.

Is there anyone out there looking more closely at this issue?

Edward

Yes, I agree with you, many agrologistic problems can be solved by simple actions, for example, scheduling at ports using recently in Brazil
Abs
Pedro

Edwards

You’re right, however, according to the study ANALYSIS OF RISKS AND COSTS OF
AGROLOGÍSTICA IN BRAZIL, carried out by the World Bank, many logistics problems can be solved with simple solutions.

Gerardo Otero
Simon Fraser University
Vancouver, Canada

Permaculture is one of the surest way to increase the input output ratio while achieving long term sustainability. It is through proper design of ecosystem that works with nature, and not against nature. There is a price for all the stupidity of conventional farming that has fed poisonous foods the world over for the last 70 years, and there is no quick fixes to switch over to a more sustainable future.

There is a video on YouTube about Loess Plateau in China…how over a 10 year period this degraded plateau was converted to something sustainable that raised the income of the inhabitants of the people by several times.

Another book, “Field Guide to Appropriate Technology” by Prof Barry Hazeltine and Christopher Hull, 2003.

What do you suggest for high risk countries?

Dear Amitabh.
I think you are referring to the productivity of the land. This parameter was not considered directly, however, it affects two parameters considered: i) rural gross domestic product index and ii) per capita income rate in rural areas.
Feel free to include the productivities (land, labor and capital).

Kind regards from México

Socially Just Taxation and Its Effects (17 listed)

Our present complicated system for taxation is unfair and has many faults. The biggest problem is to arrange it on a socially just basis. Many companies employ their workers in various ways and pay them diversely. Since these companies are registered in different countries for a number of categories, the determination the criterion for a just tax system becomes impossible, particularly if based on a fair measure of human work-activity. So why try when there is a better means available, which is really a true and socially just method?

Adam Smith (“Wealth of Nations”, 1776 REF. 1) says that land is one of the 3 factors of production (the other 2 being labor and durable capital goods). The usefulness of land is in the price that tenants pay as rent, for access rights to the particular site in question. Land is often considered as being a form of capital, since it is traded similarly to other durable capital goods items. However it is not actually man-made, so rightly it does not fall within this category. The land was originally a gift of nature (if not of God) for which all people should be free to share in its use. But its site-value greatly depends on location and is related to the community density in that region, as well as the natural resources such as rivers, minerals, animals or plants of specific use or beauty, when or after it is possible to reach them. Consequently, most of the land value is created by man within his society and therefore its advantage should logically and ethically be returned to the community for its general use, as explained by Martin Adams (in “LAND”, 2015, REF 2.).

However, due to our existing laws, land is owned and formally registered and its value is traded, even though it can’t be moved to another place, like other kinds of capital goods. This right of ownership gives the landlord a big advantage over the rest of the community because he determines how it may be used, or if it is to be held out of use, until the city grows and the site becomes more valuable. Thus speculation in land values is encouraged by the law, in treating a site of land as personal or private property—as if it were an item of capital goods, although it is not (Prof. Mason Gaffney and Fred Harrison: “The Corruption of Economics”, 2005 REF. 3).

Regarding taxation and local community spending, the municipal taxes we pay are partly used for improving the infrastructure. This means that the land becomes more useful and valuable without the landlord doing anything—he/she will always benefit from our present tax regime. This also applies when the status of unused land is upgraded and it becomes fit for community development. Then when this news is leaked, after landlords and banks corruptly pay for this information, speculation in land values is rife. There are many advantages if the land values were taxed instead of the many different kinds of production-based activities such as earnings, purchases, capital gains, home and foreign company investments, etc., (with all their regulations, complications and loop-holes). The only people due to lose from this are those who exploit the growing values of the land over the past years, when “mere” land ownership confers a financial benefit, without the owner doing a scrap of work. Consequently, for a truly socially just kind of taxation to apply there can only be one method–Land-Value Taxation.

Consider how land becomes valuable. New settlers in a region begin to specialize and this improves their efficiency in producing specific goods. The central land is the most valuable due to easy availability and least transport needed. This distribution in land values is created by the community and (after an initial start), not by the natural resources. As the city expands, speculators in land values will deliberately hold potentially useful sites out of use, until planning and development have permitted their values to grow. Meanwhile there is fierce competition for access to the most suitable sites for housing, agriculture and manufacturing industries. The limited availability of useful land means that the high rents paid by tenants make their residence more costly and the provision of goods and services more expensive. It also creates unemployment, causing wages to be lowered by the monopolists, who control the big producing organizations, and whose land was already obtained when it was cheap. Consequently this basic structure of our current macroeconomics system, works to limit opportunity and to create poverty, see above reference.

The most basic cause of our continuing poverty is the lack of properly paid work and the reason for this is the lack of opportunity of access to the land on which the work must be done. The useful land is monopolized by a landlord who either holds it out of use (for speculation in its rising value), or charges the tenant heavily for its right of access. In the case when the landlord is also the producer, he/she has a monopolistic control of the land and of the produce too, and can charge more for this access right than what an entrepreneur, who seeks greater opportunity, normally would be able to afford.

A wise and sensible government would recognize that this problem derives from lack of opportunity to work and earn. It can be solved by the use of a tax system which encourages the proper use of land and which stops penalizing everything and everybody else. Such a tax system was proposed 136 years ago by Henry George, a (North) American economist, but somehow most macro-economists seem never to have heard of him, in common with a whole lot of other experts. (I would guess that they don’t want to know, which is worse!) In “Progress and Poverty” 1879, REF. 4, Henry George proposed a single tax on land values without other kinds of tax on produce, services, capital gains etc. This regime of land value tax (LVT) has 17 features which benefit almost everyone in the economy, except for landlords and banks, who/which do nothing productive and find that land dominance has its own reward.

17 Aspects of LVT Affecting Government, Land Owners, Communities and Ethics

Four Aspects for Government:
1. LVT, adds to the national income as do other taxation systems, but it should replace them.
2. The cost of collecting the LVT is less than for all of the production-related taxes–tax avoidance becomes impossible because the sites are visible to all and who owns each is public knowledge.
3. Consumers pay less for their purchases due to lower production costs (see below). This creates greater satisfaction with the management of national affairs.
4. The national economy stabilizes—it no longer experiences the 18 year business boom/bust cycle, due to periodic speculation in land values (see below). The speculation in and withholding of unused land is eliminated, see item 7.

Six Aspects Affecting Land Owners:
5. LVT is progressive–owners of the most potentially productive sites pay the most tax. Urban sites provide the most usefulness and resulting tax. Big rural sites have less value and can be farmed appropriately to their ability to provide useful produce.
6. The land owner pays his LVT regardless of how his site is used. A large proportion of the present ground-rent from tenants becomes the LVT, with the result that land has less sales-value but a significant “rental”-value (even when it is not used).
7. LVT stops speculation in land prices because the withholding of land from proper use is not worthwhile.
8. The introduction of LVT initially reduces the sales price of sites, even though their rental value can still grow over a longer term. As more sites become available, the competition for them is less fierce.
9. With LVT, land owners are unable to pass the tax on to their tenants as rent hikes, due to the reduced competition for access to the additional sites that come into use.
10. With LVT, land prices will initially drop. Speculators in land values will want to foreclose on their mortgages and withdraw their money for reinvestment. Therefore LVT should be introduced gradually, to allow these speculators sufficient time to transfer their money to company-shares etc., and simultaneously to meet the increased demand for produce (see below, items 12 and 13).

Three Aspects Regarding Communities:
11. With LVT, there is an incentive to use land for production or residence, rather than it being unused.
12. With LVT, greater working opportunities exist due to cheaper land and a greater number of available sites. Consumer goods become cheaper too, because entrepreneurs have less difficulty in starting-up their businesses and because they pay less ground-rent–demand grows, unemployment decreases.
13. Investment money is withdrawn from land and placed in durable capital goods. This means more advances in technology and cheaper goods too.

Four Aspects About Ethics:
14. The collection of taxes from productive effort and commerce is socially unjust. LVT replaces this national extortion by gathering the surplus rental income, which comes without any exertion from the land owner or by the banks– LVT is a natural system of national income-gathering.
15. previous bribery and corruption for gaining privileged information about land cease. Before, this was due to the leaking of news of municipal plans for housing and industrial development, causing shock-waves in local land prices (and municipal workers’ and lawyers’ bank balances).
16. The improved use of the more central land of cities reduces the environmental damage due to a) unused sites being dumping-grounds, and b) the smaller amount of fossil-fuel use, when traveling between home and workplace.
17. Because the LVT eliminates the advantage that landlords currently hold over our society, LVT provides a greater equality of opportunity to earn a living. Entrepreneurs can operate in a natural way– to provide more jobs because their production costs are reduced. Then untaxed earnings will correspond to the value that the labor puts into the product or service. Consequently, after LVT has been properly and fully introduced as a single tax, it will eliminate poverty and improve business ethics.

References:
1. Adam Smith: “The Wealth of Nations”, 1776.
2. Martin Adams: “LAND– A New Paradigm for a Thriving World”, North Atlantic Books, California, 2015.
3. Mason Gaffney and Fred Harrison: “The Corruption of Economics”, Shepheard-Walyn, London, 2005.
4. Henry George: “Progress and Poverty” 1897, reprinted by Schalkenbach Foundation, NY, 1978.

Socially Just Taxation and Its Effects (17 listed)

Our present complicated system for taxation is unfair and has many faults. The biggest problem is to arrange it on a socially just basis. Many companies employ their workers in various ways and pay them diversely. Since these companies are registered in different countries for a number of categories, the determination the criterion for a just tax system becomes impossible, particularly if based on a fair measure of human work-activity. So why try when there is a better means available, which is really a true and socially just method?

Adam Smith (“Wealth of Nations”, 1776 REF. 1) says that land is one of the 3 factors of production (the other 2 being labor and durable capital goods). The usefulness of land is in the price that tenants pay as rent, for access rights to the particular site in question. Land is often considered as being a form of capital, since it is traded similarly to other durable capital goods items. However it is not actually man-made, so rightly it does not fall within this category. The land was originally a gift of nature (if not of God) for which all people should be free to share in its use. But its site-value greatly depends on location and is related to the community density in that region, as well as the natural resources such as rivers, minerals, animals or plants of specific use or beauty, when or after it is possible to reach them. Consequently, most of the land value is created by man within his society and therefore its advantage should logically and ethically be returned to the community for its general use, as explained by Martin Adams (in “LAND”, 2015, REF 2.).

However, due to our existing laws, land is owned and formally registered and its value is traded, even though it can’t be moved to another place, like other kinds of capital goods. This right of ownership gives the landlord a big advantage over the rest of the community because he determines how it may be used, or if it is to be held out of use, until the city grows and the site becomes more valuable. Thus speculation in land values is encouraged by the law, in treating a site of land as personal or private property—as if it were an item of capital goods, although it is not (Prof. Mason Gaffney and Fred Harrison: “The Corruption of Economics”, 2005 REF. 3).

Regarding taxation and local community spending, the municipal taxes we pay are partly used for improving the infrastructure. This means that the land becomes more useful and valuable without the landlord doing anything—he/she will always benefit from our present tax regime. This also applies when the status of unused land is upgraded and it becomes fit for community development. Then when this news is leaked, after landlords and banks corruptly pay for this information, speculation in land values is rife. There are many advantages if the land values were taxed instead of the many different kinds of production-based activities such as earnings, purchases, capital gains, home and foreign company investments, etc., (with all their regulations, complications and loop-holes). The only people due to lose from this are those who exploit the growing values of the land over the past years, when “mere” land ownership confers a financial benefit, without the owner doing a scrap of work. Consequently, for a truly socially just kind of taxation to apply there can only be one method–Land-Value Taxation.

Consider how land becomes valuable. New settlers in a region begin to specialize and this improves their efficiency in producing specific goods. The central land is the most valuable due to easy availability and least transport needed. This distribution in land values is created by the community and (after an initial start), not by the natural resources. As the city expands, speculators in land values will deliberately hold potentially useful sites out of use, until planning and development have permitted their values to grow. Meanwhile there is fierce competition for access to the most suitable sites for housing, agriculture and manufacturing industries. The limited availability of useful land means that the high rents paid by tenants make their residence more costly and the provision of goods and services more expensive. It also creates unemployment, causing wages to be lowered by the monopolists, who control the big producing organizations, and whose land was already obtained when it was cheap. Consequently this basic structure of our current macroeconomics system, works to limit opportunity and to create poverty, see above reference.

The most basic cause of our continuing poverty is the lack of properly paid work and the reason for this is the lack of opportunity of access to the land on which the work must be done. The useful land is monopolized by a landlord who either holds it out of use (for speculation in its rising value), or charges the tenant heavily for its right of access. In the case when the landlord is also the producer, he/she has a monopolistic control of the land and of the produce too, and can charge more for this access right than what an entrepreneur, who seeks greater opportunity, normally would be able to afford.

A wise and sensible government would recognize that this problem derives from lack of opportunity to work and earn. It can be solved by the use of a tax system which encourages the proper use of land and which stops penalizing everything and everybody else. Such a tax system was proposed 136 years ago by Henry George, a (North) American economist, but somehow most macro-economists seem never to have heard of him, in common with a whole lot of other experts. (I would guess that they don’t want to know, which is worse!) In “Progress and Poverty” 1879, REF. 4, Henry George proposed a single tax on land values without other kinds of tax on produce, services, capital gains etc. This regime of land value tax (LVT) has 17 features which benefit almost everyone in the economy, except for landlords and banks, who/which do nothing productive and find that land dominance has its own reward.

17 Aspects of LVT Affecting Government, Land Owners, Communities and Ethics

Four Aspects for Government:
1. LVT, adds to the national income as do other taxation systems, but it should replace them.
2. The cost of collecting the LVT is less than for all of the production-related taxes–tax avoidance becomes impossible because the sites are visible to all and who owns each is public knowledge.
3. Consumers pay less for their purchases due to lower production costs (see below). This creates greater satisfaction with the management of national affairs.
4. The national economy stabilizes—it no longer experiences the 18 year business boom/bust cycle, due to periodic speculation in land values (see below). The speculation in and withholding of unused land is eliminated, see item 7.

Six Aspects Affecting Land Owners:
5. LVT is progressive–owners of the most potentially productive sites pay the most tax. Urban sites provide the most usefulness and resulting tax. Big rural sites have less value and can be farmed appropriately to their ability to provide useful produce.
6. The land owner pays his LVT regardless of how his site is used. A large proportion of the present ground-rent from tenants becomes the LVT, with the result that land has less sales-value but a significant “rental”-value (even when it is not used).
7. LVT stops speculation in land prices because the withholding of land from proper use is not worthwhile.
8. The introduction of LVT initially reduces the sales price of sites, even though their rental value can still grow over a longer term. As more sites become available, the competition for them is less fierce.
9. With LVT, land owners are unable to pass the tax on to their tenants as rent hikes, due to the reduced competition for access to the additional sites that come into use.
10. With LVT, land prices will initially drop. Speculators in land values will want to foreclose on their mortgages and withdraw their money for reinvestment. Therefore LVT should be introduced gradually, to allow these speculators sufficient time to transfer their money to company-shares etc., and simultaneously to meet the increased demand for produce (see below, items 12 and 13).

Three Aspects Regarding Communities:
11. With LVT, there is an incentive to use land for production or residence, rather than it being unused.
12. With LVT, greater working opportunities exist due to cheaper land and a greater number of available sites. Consumer goods become cheaper too, because entrepreneurs have less difficulty in starting-up their businesses and because they pay less ground-rent–demand grows, unemployment decreases.
13. Investment money is withdrawn from land and placed in durable capital goods. This means more advances in technology and cheaper goods too.

Four Aspects About Ethics:
14. The collection of taxes from productive effort and commerce is socially unjust. LVT replaces this national extortion by gathering the surplus rental income, which comes without any exertion from the land owner or by the banks– LVT is a natural system of national income-gathering.
15. previous bribery and corruption for gaining privileged information about land cease. Before, this was due to the leaking of news of municipal plans for housing and industrial development, causing shock-waves in local land prices (and municipal workers’ and lawyers’ bank balances).
16. The improved use of the more central land of cities reduces the environmental damage due to a) unused sites being dumping-grounds, and b) the smaller amount of fossil-fuel use, when traveling between home and workplace.
17. Because the LVT eliminates the advantage that landlords currently hold over our society, LVT provides a greater equality of opportunity to earn a living. Entrepreneurs can operate in a natural way– to provide more jobs because their production costs are reduced. Then untaxed earnings will correspond to the value that the labor puts into the product or service. Consequently, after LVT has been properly and fully introduced as a single tax, it will eliminate poverty and improve business ethics.

References:
1. Adam Smith: “The Wealth of Nations”, 1776.
2. Martin Adams: “LAND– A New Paradigm for a Thriving World”, North Atlantic Books, California, 2015.
3. Mason Gaffney and Fred Harrison: “The Corruption of Economics”, Shepheard-Walyn, London, 2005.
4. Henry George: “Progress and Poverty” 1897, reprinted by Schalkenbach Foundation, NY, 1978.

I am curious to know about one of the impotent aspect i.e. PRODUCTIVITY ? which is in fact v imp aspect for Developing Countries like India,
Whether , this aspect has been incorporated in IDRS?

thx