Okay, so I make no bones about my disdain for the festival of rent-seeking and lobbying that is the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos. The top of the worlds hierarchies, governments, their corporate whores and bastard children the lobbyists meet, and, as Adam Smith wrote nearly 250 years ago now: "People…
...or "Don't Go To Bed Angry". The first in I hope an infrequent series of getting something off my chest before going to bed. Tonight: how not to make friends in a new political party. I was a witness and participant this evening in a Facebook thread in a forum for Liberal Democrat "Newbies" that…
The OECD has a Policy Highlight document out, summarising two forthcoming publications on the governance of land use. In it (page 17) it advocates for Land Value Tax: If governments aim to encourage efficient land use within urban areas, they may also consider the introduction of a pure land value tax, which provides particularly strong…
So, barring some exceedingly unlikely extraordinary parliamentary gyrations that see a 380 odd majority at second reading overturned at third reading, it looks like Article 50 will be invoked to Theresa May's timetable in March and negotiations will begin in earnest to achieve whatever they mean by "Brexit". Whilst I was a remain voter, and would…
Here my "fantasy politics" piece for the Liberal Britain "2030 Vision" competition which has now closed and been judged, though the results have not been announced yet. As I say, a bit of fun really. It's about "sovereign localism" and sharing the rents, and about how central government is a thing of the past, for…
The sharp eyed among you may have noticed that no sooner had I launched this blog as the "Voluntaryist Review" than I decided to change it to the "Geomutualist Review". In writing the indtroductory post on "voluntaryism" I decided I wasn't, in fact, what is known today as a "voluntaryist". But I don't know why I…
A change is as good as a rest, as they say. So one might hope that a long rest followed by a change would be even better. Let's hope so. After a long hiatus in which I have blogged only very rarely, at least in part because of an unwillingness to keep my Drupal installation…
So, attached is a "final" version of the paper on which I shall be basing my presentation at Lib Dem conference next Monday. The whole event was initially envisaged as a joint affair between Green Lib Dems and ALTER, the land tax campaign within the party. But GLD are doing something of their own. But…
The thread that runs right through this paper requires readers to understand what we mean when we talk about rent. No doubt many people, if they think about “rent”, think of, predominantly, what people without a home of their own pay to live in someone else’s spare property, or, more broadly, a fee one pays…
Almost every self-declared libertarian I’ve heard from seems to believe some version of the idea that “leaving the EU is the greatest step toward liberty we can make in our lifetimes”. I disagree. In fact I go further and suggest it would be a regressive step to give those who wish to rule us from…