International Union Conference
H. William Batt
[A report on the conference held in London, England. Reprinted from
GroundSwell, July-August 2006]
The conference of the International Union for Land Value Taxation
and Free Trade was held in London, July 3rd through 7th. Three days
were devoted to the presentation of formal papers, another day for
exploratory visits, and a final day for the IU business meeting. The
theme of the conference was The Economics of Abundance,
and the website will remain online for those who may wish to take a
look.
: I attended less for the formal papers than to get to know Georgists
beyond our borders that give us the identity as a worldwide movement.
Most of us stayed at a dormitory right across the street of the
meeting site at Kings College, and the entire venue took place in one
room on that site. All the proceedings of the conference itself were
videotaped, and may be very useful to us pending their editing.
They're already taking orders for them.
The conference was attended by about seventy, roughly half being
members of the IU the others largely from the School of Economic
Science in London. Broken down by nationality, there were (besides the
Brits) seven Americans, four Danes, five Australians, one Canadian,
and a few others in the UK beyond England itself. Current IU
president, Tatiana Roshkoshnaya, having returned from the Vancouver
Habitat conference to her post in Kenya, still had the stamina to fly
back from Nairobi to London for three of the five days.
On the first day, Monday, the broad themes were put forth under the
conference title. Fred Harrison offered a short opening address,
followed by papers by Rana Roy and Michael Hudson. They offered
contrasting views of historical progress and wealth creation in the
present era. The afternoon heard two papers: one by Leslie Blake, a
barrister and a director of the Land Research Trust, on Beyond
Utopia: Plato & Thomas More, and a second by Alan Spence, an
urban planner instrumental in preserving London's Covent Garden when
it was threatened with replacement. His paper was on Marx and
the Dialectic of Urban Rent. Although both morning and afternoon
sessions were followed by discussions, only the morning session had
any real sparks. The afternoon papers were very esoteric and read
verbatim, with deadening impact. Frank Peddle moderated the session
and offered remarks that were well-framed and lucid.
The second day was devoted to The Transitional Arrangements,
how we can get from here to there. Chaired and led by Transport for
London's Dave Wetzel, a name familiar to most American Georgists,
there were five papers in the course of the day. Australian Phil
Anderson began with a discussion of capital markets, offering an
apology for using his own understanding of economics to speculate in
ways that support his Georgist advocacy. His own forecasting ability
is based on clear and demonstrable understanding of economic cycles,
typically about eighteen years' duration. The next one will occur
after 2008, of this you can be absolutely certain. . . . It is now too
late to avoid the recession forthcoming. His forecasts are available
on his company's EIS website, not finished as I write this, but sure
to be worth looking at when it's done. Three more papers, culminating
with one by Nic Tideman, continued and formed the basis of late
afternoon discussions, and evening was free for us to wander about
London or sit and visit with one another.
Three choices were offered us on Wednesday the break coming
mid-week so that we wouldn't be conferenced out. I dont
know of anyone that went to see choice one a visit to
Letchworth Garden City, Ebenezer Howards first creation,
established at the turn of the 20th century. Frank Peddle was the only
one who opted for the second venue a trip over to Paris for the
day on the Eurostar chunnel. I think the sign said it was
a two hours and forty minute trip with speeds up to 300 miles per
hour. It left from Waterloo station adjacent to our conference site,
so it was easy to see the volume of people coming and going. This
certainly must account in good part for the development in that area,
and the pivotal Jubilee Line tube serving that station was proposed as
a site for value capture finance.
It was the third option that most of us signed up for: a set of three
presentations about transportation services that had been arranged by
Dave Wetzel. Dave saw to it that we not only got an extensive packet
of information, but also a lunch and a great picture of the
revitalized services. First came The London Bus Success Story
by a woman with the delightful title of Director of Performance.
(If I ever take a salaried job again, I think thats the title Id
like!) Then came a presentation on the London Undergrounds
progress and plans. Lastly was an account of the success of Londons
congestion charging scheme, now after three years of successful
operation. Indeed it will be expanded to almost double the area in a
few months. What was for me doubly good was the powerpoint
presentations were given to me afterwards for the asking
wonderful charts and graphics that will make it easy for us to recall
the stories should we so wish.
Thursday was back to the conference, part three titled, Getting
the Measure of Abundance. Bryan Kavanagh began with an excellent
graphic presentation of the relationship between land sales and prices
as they related to the overall Australian economy. It was a very
compelling story. By this time also IU President Tatiana Roshkoshnaya
had arrived and related the promise and the limitations of the current
Russian economy. Two final morning presentations were given about the
prospects of Chinese interest in LVT, given by past IU president
Fernando Scornik Gerstein and Michael Hudson. Long-time Georgist
author Ron Banks began the afternoon session by contemplating a repeat
of what was known as the Peoples Budget almost a
century ago. A Peoples Budget 2009, is not beyond
possibility, he argued, one where LVT might be central, as there is a
revived interest in land taxation as other revenue designs reveal
their failings.
The time between the formal sessions, never enough of course, offered
us a chance to get to know one another, and appreciate the varying
perspectives. The British invoke the tradition of natural law as a
foundation of Georgist thought more often than Ive heard said
here in the States, and the focus seems to be more on national reforms
than on any local initiatives. And there is a profound sense of the
history of the Georgist movement there, with all its efforts and near
misses. I felt particularly privileged to meet the foremost historian
of British Georgism, Roy Douglas, whose books Ive read and which
are the basis of most of the references. He is a gracious man with an
easy broad smile and a voice that (Im told) that can carry the
distance of Hyde Park with no difficulty at all. The Australians are
wonderfully astute, and easy to work with. They too certainly know
their Georgism both philosophically and empirically. The Danes
there were four of them in attendance, though Ole Lefmann is now an
English resident seem to be regulars at every conference,
reliable for their presence and conversation, although now getting on
in years. The reinforcing presence of kindred spirits is important for
our movements enervation and vitality; and is the real reason
for our meeting.
IU Executive officer Peter Gibb concluded the formal part of the
conference with an outline of The Agenda for the 21st Century.
It included seven concerns, quickly summarized here, and organized
in three parts: where are we, where are we going, and how do we get
there?
- What should constitute state and corporate structures,and how
much right should they have to extract rent?
- How should nature and humanity relate (from an economic point
of view)?
- How will international law and rights over resources evolve and
mature and will it come close to natural law?
- How will new technologies change structure and reality as
applied to common resources?
- How will intergenerational relationships evolve the
equity rich older class and the younger generation, which cant
afford to get started?
- How can we manage resource depletion, especially as regards
energy?
- How will societal benefits be secured education, health
care, transportation, and other services that we think of as
public goods?
And with this, the formal part of the conference was concluded. There
remained, of course, the business meeting of the IU on Friday, and a
final dinner trip by boat down and up the Thames lasting until 11 PM
that evening. We were reminded during that trip how hot it had been
all week a spell of weather that London has seldom seen. And it
recalled for us the other aspects of London that were troubling if not
ominous. There has been a drastic water shortage due to the lack of
rain this past spring, and video-cameras are now so ubiquitous that it
is said that the average person is captured on film about 375 times
daily!
I came away in the confident belief that the Georgist movement is
healthy. There are new people coming to meetings, new books being
published, more attention being given to our ideas, and a renewed
confidence in our message. I am glad that I attended; I now know a
dimension of our network and movement that I hadnt appreciated
before. We missed certain people to be sure their names came up
often, especially Alanna Hartzoks. And although London is
clearly the accepted site for IU conferences for the immediate future,
there was talk of its moving perhaps to South America, and even to
Asia for a change. With discussion of rent collection in all its forms
directing our attention to the spectrum, to air and water, and
especially to energy resources, the Georgist movement cannot help but
be worldwide in its scope and purview.
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