A Cannan Hits the Mark
Abstract supplied by Wiley Publishing: Edwin Cannan (1861–1935) is best known for his 1904 edition of The Wealth of Nations, which became a standard. His next best-known work is a History of Theories of Production and Distribution, 1893. His book most relevant here is History of Local Rates in England, 1896. He was a professor at the London School of Economics, 1907–26, although a large inherited fortune let him live and rub elbows at Oxford, which he seemed to prefer. His later work was less noteworthy. He criticized both Marshall and J. M. Keynes, but without much impact.
DetailsA New Framework for Macroeconomics: Achieving Full Employment by Increasing Capital Turnover
Abstract supplied by Wiley Publishing: Most forms of macroeconomics today, whether Keynesian or monetarist, presuppose that problems of economic instability can be treated as errors in financial management. Neither fiscal nor monetary policy recognizes the existence of systemic faults in the real economy that result in overinvestment in durable capital that turns over slowly, in contrast to forms of capital that interact more frequently with land and labor. Only by removing serious distortions in microeconomic relations can macroeconomic problems be resolved. The current global economic crisis exemplifies the limitations of policies that ignore distortions in the rate of turnover of investment capital.
DetailsA Simple General Test for Tax Bias
Abstract supplied by Wiley Publishing: The paper infers the biasing effects of taxes from their differential effects on the present values of rival uses for given tracts of land. After-tax wage rates, interest rates, and commodity prices are exogenous, hence not affected by taxes, which are therefore all shifted to land rents and values. The effects are differential among rival uses, hence change their ranking in the eyes of the landowner-manager. Most taxes downgrade the highest use into a lower use, inducing quantum leaps away from higher and better uses into lower and worse uses. The paper uses forestry as an allegory for all land uses. It compares yield taxes, property taxes, income taxes, and site value taxes. It finds that a change from the first three to the site value tax would induce quantum leaps from lower to higher uses of land.
DetailsAlfred Russel Wallace’s Campaign to Nationalize Land: How Darwin’s Peer Learned from John Stuart Mill and Became Henry George’s Ally
Abstract supplied by Wiley Publishing: Alfred Russel Wallace rose to fame with Charles Darwin: They independently found the principle of natural selection. Wallace later focused on reforming Great Britain's land tenure system, under which a few owners had come to control most of the land, while most citizens had little or none of their own. In Land Nationalization (1882) Wallace proposed for the state to acquire all land, with limited compensation. The state would then lease it by auction, but to actual users only. Wallace saw his kinship with Henry George, and opened doors to help George tour Britain as a speaker. For years their ideas were linked by friend and foe, and together had great impact on British politics.
DetailsCorporate Power and Expansive U.S. Military Policy
Abstract supplied by Wiley Publishing: Military defense is generally treated in economics texts as a “public good” because the benefits are presumed to be shared by all citizens. However, defense spending by the United States cannot legitimately be classified as a public good, since the primary purpose of those expenditures has been to project power in support of private business interests. Throughout the course of the 20th century, U.S. military spending has been largely devoted to protecting the overseas assets of multinational corporations that are based in the United States or allied nations. Companies extracting oil, mineral ores, timber, and other raw materials are the primary beneficiaries. The U.S. military provides its services by supporting compliant political leaders in developing countries and by punishing or deposing regimes that threaten the interests of U.S.-based corporations. The companies involved in this process generally have invested only a small amount of their own capital. Instead, the value of their overseas assets largely derives from the appreciation of oil and other raw materials in situ. Companies bought resource-rich lands cheaply, as early as the 1930s or 1940s, and then waited for decades to develop them. In order to make a profit on this long-range strategy, they formed cartels to limit global supply and relied on the U.S. military to help them maintain secure title over a period of decades. Those operations have required suppressing democratic impulses in dozens of nations. The global “sprawl” of extractive companies has been the catalyst of U.S. foreign policy for the past century. The U.S. Department of Defense provides a giant subsidy to companies operating overseas, and the cost is borne by the taxpayers of the United States, not by the corporate beneficiaries. Defining military spending as a “public good” has been a mistake with global ramifications, leading to patriotic support for imperialist behavior.
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