Robert Stark talks to Mark Mollineaux about Georgist economic theory and its implications on urbanism. Mark is the host of The Henry George Program hosted by Stanford University’s Radio. Follow the show on Twitter.
Topics:
Ideological roots of Georgist thought
Georgist view on property ownership
How to better incentivize efficient land usage
How Georgism can facilitate better urbanism and prevent sprawl
The difference between a land value tax and general property tax
How a land value tax relates to zoning regulation
Concerns for land foreclosures
The issue of the middle class being forced to invest all their income into real estate
The SingaporeLand Authority
The concept of having a local currency tied to the cost of living
Bay Area Housing Crisis
Disneyland as an urban model
JEFFERY J. SMITH published The Geonomist, which won a California GreenLight Award, has appeared in both the popular press (e.g.,TruthOut) and academic journals (e.g., USC’s “Planning and Markets”), been interviewed on radio and TV, lobbied officials, testified before the Russian Duma, conducted research (e.g., for Portland’s mass transit agency), and recruited activists and academics to Progress.org. A member of the International Society for Ecological Economics and of Mensa, he lives amidst the beauty of Northern California. Jeffery is currently Chief Editor at Progress.org.
Topics:
Jeffery Smith’s new science fiction novel Perfect Timing about time travel to a future society
How the book conveys the tone of Hitchhiker’s Guide, offers insights like Stranger in a Strange Land, and presents an upbeat alternative to Brave New World
The theme and implementation of a Basic Income in the future society
Why a basic income is necessary and ways to implement it
The artificial notion of the work week and the book The Overworked American
The Post-scarcity economy and how the surplus of wealth is concentrated in the top 1%
The theme of Utopia; Aldous Huxley’s utopian novel Island
The future society of Geotopia, the theme of Ecotopia, and the book by Ernest Callenbach
Ecological based economics; Herman Daly’s Steady State Economics
Geonomics, Georgism, and the land value tax
How a land value tax is different from a property tax and leads to more efficient land use City Density—Friend of Trip Efficiency
The book Better NOT Bigger: How to Take Control of Urban Growth and Improve your Community
Jeffery Smith’s upcoming book on measuring the indicators of land value
Randall Burns is a graduate of the University of Chicago Department of Economics where his professors included Maynard Krueger and Arcadius Kahan. He worked for years in the tech industry and helped with an early database integration for what eventually became the world’s mostpopular credit card fraud detection system. He was the DBA supporting a team of auditors working on the investigation of convicted felon Bill Griffin, former CEO of a major insurance company. He was a volunteer for the 1976 Carter campaign. In 1990, he published “Rx for the Environment and the Economy” in the Oregon Peaceworker, which proposed a revenue neutral tax shift to pollution taxes. An initiativeadvocating similar policies will be on the ballot in 2016 in Washington State. In 2004, he helped write the Kucinich Campaign’s statement on Guest Worker Visas. Randall Burns – VDARE.com