[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Ape Guidance, LVT, Real Democracy & Capitalism / What we're up against!

[Mark Barrett]

Thanks to Heather for letting me forward this with Stuart's initial
question (see below) about reformist nature of LVT

But also, some may be interested in the following from today's Times,
*The Great
Ape Guide to A Great Reform Act:* "The study of evolution, in particular of
the social evolution of the great apes, has revealed that we have a natural
group size — or to be more exact, a number of natural group sizes — which
have taken us down from the trees and up to the Moon. Any system that is to
work must follow our evolutionary nature.For millions of years, we evolved
as primates in groups of 50 or so, which is still the size of a normal group
of our nearest relatives, the gorillas and chimpanzees. Although we split
from them about six million years ago, this group size persisted. It is
found everywhere: small businesses, departments of larger ones, common
rooms, military squadrons. It is a size people are happy with. You know
everyone, you know what they do and how well they do it; you notice when
they are not there....All that is required is a street representative for
each group of 20 to 30 households, available to hear queries, complaints or
suggestions, and calling occasionally to give information or warnings.. a
tribe of 600 members is the largest possible natural unit of the human
community...[need to] create city villages, areas of some two or three
hundred households, electing their own village councils (the street
representatives)... there is one other unit which has its genetic base in
human evolutionary history. They put this last unit, the supertribe, at
6,000...The supertribe, the market town of a few thousand, is a number we
have been happy with over the centuries. It can be self-sufficient in a way
that a village of a few hundred cannot. Our cities are full of these
potential market towns; 6,000 is the sort of number that can support a
shopping parade, a school and all the services for everyday living. It is
not that long — a few hundred years — since towns that size ran themselves
with minimum help or interference from above. They still could...Six
thousand may sound a small number, but a government budget of £600 billion
means that such a group contributes and consumes £100 million a year. At the
moment, each citizen deals separately with an absurd range of government
institutions, whereas almost all of these transactions could be carried out
at the offices of his city township. " .
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6684542.ece

Here's Heather's response:

"..Most folk I know don't want to take responsibility for their own
neighbourhoods or their own workplace.  Sadly, the capitalists have bought
us off - they gave us a few more sweets and we lost the urge to fight for
justice.  We have an example of a former NF person who got elected to
Hounslow Council on the basis he fights for his local community.  He says he
has reformed and is no longer racist and it appears he has changed but
others will influence on seemingly innicent issues and then show their real
colours (as has the BNP in wanting to sink the boat people).  I think most
people are happy to step back and let others take control and then moan when
things go wrong.  Surely we have the opportunity for local democracy with
local government today - it is starved of money but there is no longer any
call by local folk and groups to demand proper involvement in local issues.
Those elected do not want to involve local people in getting their community
group involved in decision-making.  In the '80s there was a strong move from
and local government for people and organisations to take responsibility and
get involved in decision-making in their community - to take responsilibily
for providing community services with proper funding.

I hope I am proved wrong and people do waken up and demand change.  Real
democracy is something hard to achieve because so many stay in the
background and their views are not sought or valued by the loudest.  I do
not have the right to make decisions on behalf of others unless I bother to
find out what it is they want and need and I have to go to them for that
because they won't come to me.

If we can make a start and change the system so that we all share our
natural resource income in a fair and just mannner and in an efficient and
sparing way that protects our natural resources for all of us and for
generations to come, we will achieve something.  If folk could see that we
are all part of nature and are all interdependent both in the world today
and across time, then people will come to see that we should only consume
what is necessary and what benefits all of us.  However, I think today's
obsessions with consumerism, 'Big Brother', the adoration of 'celebraties'
who are famous for nothing more than having affairs, spending a fortune on
clothes and going to clubs etc has make the task  to bring about real change
very much harder.

Wow - that was a bit heavy for me on a Saturday morning!!  I might go an
visit our Eco Village that has set up on a site by the Thames opposite Kew
Gardens - it is one that Dave and I have been saying we should squat but
never did.

(Just in case you wonder who I am - I am Heather Wetzel but amd using my old
name Allman for some of my politics again.)

See you soon.

All the best

Heather

(Wetzel / Allman or what ever takes my fancy)

HEATHER ALLMAN - RESEARCHER
"Transforming Communities"
email: allman.heather at googlemail.com
Sustainable Transport Policies . Public Finance with Social Inclusion .
Affordable Housing . Economic Land Policies with Justice.
www.LabourLand.org <http://www.labourland.org/>


Hi again Stu

Here below is Dave Wetzel's brief response to your question - "In respect of
making land a key focus, I completely agree. Land enclosure is the basis of
capitalism and dispossession. But a land tax implies retaining capitalism.
"

By way of supplementary, the way I see it, it's a way of
nationalising/socialising land values without actually taking it from
landowners at gunpoint. And, yes I agree other policies (as inferred by Dave
and yourself) will definitely be needed in addition, in order to get beyond
capitalism. This must include more than new tax and a ditchinf of some of
the old ones, and must see a shift in actual control from individuals and
corps to to democratic human collectives. But I do think this tax is part of
what we need in mix in terms of showing the values we are for (the earth a
common treasury for all, and a tax that reflects that) and how we are to
wean ourselves off the old ways via practical application of a revolutionary
agenda.

But the shift in control part is defintely where I see more overtly
anti-capitalist policies coming into play, and yes basically at heart this
must be about land and freedom.

So, according to the agenda Project 2012 have set out so; far buildings must
be given over to/seized permanently by the people, in every neighbourhood,
to be run as they see fit, and eventually with decision making powers,
equivalent to functions of parliament, bank and even benefits distribution -
all working on local democracy consensus basis - (benefits, for example
mini-jobs so people can start doing 3-4 hours a week of what they want to
do, in, and in collaboration with, a local community decision body (ie, some
form of local people assembly) - this way communities compete for labour,
and decide the character of their area through decisions about who to lend
to (as bank), what to spend on (as local parliament) and who to employ
through benefits system so we start creating  a community based, direct
democratic political economy. And of course there is no reason why land
can't also be ring-fenced for new intentional low impact communities to set
up  all around the countr, in a reworking of the old monastic system / pre
enclosure ( a kind of democratic anarcho communist re-enclosure with
collective stewardship / ownership rights, security of tenure for
environmental and human-social purposes..)

All this raises more questions about how do you define a neighbourhood, what
happens if the BNP types take over, what will happen to job market in
corporations, domestic investment and much more besides. And all of this
needs to be considered, (& much of it has) and then developed as theory
aswell as connecting to mobilisation if we are to win power. Hopefully
between us we can do just that in the coming years!

I hope this of interest, have to rush out now so will leave it at that.

All the best comrade
Mark
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dave Wetzel <davewetzel42 at googlemail.com>
Date: 2009/7/11
Subject: Re: LVT Question
To: Mark Barrett <marknbarrett at googlemail.com>

Hi Mark,
Greetings from Harbin in China.
I'm here to give a lecture in the Plenary Opening Session on Sunday 12th
July of the 2009 International Forum on Urban Development and Planning
organised by the People's Government of Harbin Municipality and the Chinese
Government's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and other
bodies including co-sponsors such as the Lincoln Institute at Peking
University.
 In haste right now so maybe the best I can do is to send you and Stuart
Hodkinson a copy of the paper I have circulated in advance of my speech.

nb Annual Land Value Tax or what I call LBC - Location Benefit Charge (an
annual charge on landowners for the benefit they receive from the community)
is a way of collecting land rent from all landowners. To introduce we could
set it at say, only 10% of the annual rent but over a reasonable period
raise it to 50% -the highest rate of income tax - and at the same time
abolish or reduce many other taxes. (Perhaps raise the thresh-hold for
income tax with a personal allowance of £30k so that nobody earning less
than £30k should pay no income tax).  Eventually I would suggest that
nothing less than 100% LBC should be adopted so that all of land rent is
used to pay for public services and because it would make the economy more
efficient (no valuable land kept idle by speculators, more urban farms and
parks, less urban sprawl etc) we could not only easily afford to shift our
economy to a more environmental approach but also pay a Citizen's Land
Dividend to every adult and child.

Stuart is right - LVT (or LBC) is not a panacea - it will not replace
capitalism. Neither will it cure cancer. We will need other policies to
achieve both - but I believe it is an essential step towards a socialist,
green society in which local people and communities can take control. See:
www.LabourLand.org <http://www.labourland.org/>  and for a non-socialist
view of LVT www.TheIU.org <http://www.theiu.org/>

China’s Gift To The World
–
.
China is a growing super power. Her GDP expands each year at an amazing
rate. The shift in the past 40 years from a communist, mainly agricultural
economy to a communist-led, mixed public/private economy producing massive
growth in industry has been nothing short of incredible.
China has become the manufacturer of the world. Every child in the USA and
Europe plays with toys and games that have been made in China and households
have many goods that originated in Chinese factories.
China is truly a global player.
This expansion in the international arena has led to economic prosperity for
China - at a price.
The price is greater exposure to the World’s dysfunctional financial and
economic systems where even in the so-called “prosperous West” (USA and
Europe) - much poverty sits beside plenty, where many are left uneducated,
where health programmes are often either unaffordable or do not match
people’s needs, where many essential services (including much research for
cures to illnesses) rely upon charities accosting people on the streets or
advertising on TV for donations, where amid prosperity many people’s diets
are inadequate, where it is common to find unemployed and homeless people,
racial tensions are growing, where taxes on trade and incomes are far too
high, crime is widespread and the prisons are full.
The current world financial and economic crisis leaves China dangerously
exposed. Chinese factories now face massive reductions in overseas demand
for their goods and the whole economy suffers.
It must be possible to improve upon a system that produces such dire
results.
This present crisis is a symptom of the failure of the capitalist mode of
production. That is not to say that the free market exchange and trade of
goods and services between individuals, companies and indeed between
countries, is intrinsically bad. This trade where we each produce and
exchange more of what we excel in (preferably in a sustainable way) can only
benefit mankind.
Local production for local markets is also a desirable way of reducing huge
transport costs and many adverse effects on our environment. This should be
achieved by releasing local economies to play to their own strengths and not
by creating artificial trade barriers whether they are taxes, duties and
custom charges on imports or artificial barriers, such as laws prohibiting
certain goods for reasons other than genuine safety or for ethical
considerations (such as the international trade boycott on South African
goods during the apartheid period).
It must now be obvious to all, that the current capitalist mode of
production as practiced in the West does have a fundamental flaw. Many
Government leaders are happy to just blame the banking and financial systems
and seek regulatory controls on future lending. I believe that the current
crisis is caused by a much deeper underlying defect than a mere
banking/credit problem. The fact that this crisis is not unique, that it is
a part of a pattern of a regular circa 18 year cycle of booms and slumps
must surely indicate that we are all ignoring a fundamental truth. A truth
as important to economics as the law of gravity is to physics.
Could it be that because of its unique history, culture, politics and
intellect – that China could not only develop an economic model that gives
it some protection from the current and future world trade downturns but
actually sets the agenda for other major and emerging economies to follow?
The answer to this question has to be a resounding “YES”!
Most economists failed to see the impending economic crash.
This is like saying that most rocket scientists failed to see that they had
to produce enough power to overcome the Earth’s pull of gravity if they were
ever to launch a satellite into orbit.
How can economists, the practioners of a science that does nothing but study
the production and distribution of wealth be so ignorant?
It can only be because there is a failure in their body of knowledge. An
important factor that gets totally ignored, distorted or deliberately
misconstrued.
Ever since the dawn of civilisation, cities have always given people the
opportunity to create surplus wealth. Craftsmen become specialised and hence
more productive, trade increases, new tools are created, ideas are readily
exchanged, knowledge grows and surplus time is devoted to the arts, sport
and other cultural and leisure activities. As a city grows, people move in
from the surrounding neighbourhoods. This creates a demand for space. Space
for homes, factories, offices, shops, roads, railways, leisure activities
etc. This growing demand creates a value for land. We call this land value
“economic rent”. This value cannot be ignored. It exists as surely as the
law of gravity.
It is not the “rent” paid for the hire of a man-made item such as a building
or hire car. “Economic rent” is the income that arises from land or natural
resources. It is the value of the location of a building, or the extra
natural fertility of a farmer’s field or the demand for a landing slot at an
airport or the part of the spectrum used for mobile telephony.
We all need land for our existence.
To create man-made wealth – our food, clothes, homes, workplaces, transport
etc we need three distinct factors of production: namely Labour – human
mental and physical exertion, Capital – man-made wealth used to create more
wealth and finally Land and Natural Resources. Without land and natural
resources we can create nothing.
The return to Labour is wages. And if I take your wages you become my
slave.     The return to Capital is interest or profit. If I defer spending
my wages and instead buy tools, then surely I am entitled to a return on my
capital.                                  The return to Land and Natural
resources is economic rent.
So the question arises, who has the right, morally rather than legally, to
enjoy this land value?
In Western economies it is usually accepted that the owners of land have the
right to collect the economic rent of land. But on what basis do these
landowners make this claim? Did they build the planet with their own labour?
Of course not! They and their ancestors have grabbed the land using
strength, guile, cunningness, bribery and military conquest. They have then
influenced governments to pass legislation that gives their “ownership” the
force of law.
In its constitution, China recognises that land belongs to all. But even in
China the collection of economic rent is only partially addressed.
One of China’s founding fathers, Dr Sun Yat-sen advocated the collection of
economic rent. Karl Marx and Engels described how the rent of land should be
used to pay for public services in their writings including “The Communist
Manifesto”.
Hong Kong has collected a part of economic rent for over a century. All land
in Hong Kong is leased and the income used to partly meet government
expenditure. Because of the nature of the leases and methods of auctioning
them, not all the economic rent is collected publicly and a large part
remains in private hands. But nevertheless they did manage to build a new
Metro and a new airport from land values rather than resort to taxing trade
or people’s incomes.
If China adopted a policy for collecting all land rent, many advantages
would flow. The value of buildings and other improvements would be ignored
and only the location value collected. Taxes on trade or incomes could be
reduced or even abolished. Economic rent could be used for funding
infrastructure improvements which over time would add to surrounding land
values and thus increase the public income naturally.
Few entrepreneurs would pay to keep land idle for speculative reasons and so
city land would be developed comprehensively, facilitating the use of
communal services such as transport and avoiding the unnecessary spread of
urbanisation into the surrounding countryside – urban sprawl. With towns and
cities becoming more efficient, business growth would be sustained and the
whole economy would become more efficient.
The current world economic crisis originated in the USA with banks lending
money to people on low incomes (subprime mortgages). It was only when land
prices reduced that the world-wide banks had a problem and soft loans for
land speculation in other countries also began to cause economic collapse.
So the world needs to address the land problem as well as a banking problem.
Collecting the economic rent of land is the way to do it!

Dave Wetzel
DaveWetzel42 at googlemail.com
Tel: 0044 208 568 9004
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