Worldwatch Institute State of the World 2015 - The Prospects for a Sustainable Economy, Peter Victor

Economy | Information | History | Online | Facts | World | Global | Money

1. Great thanks for sharing valuable information to public viewers, worldwide.
2. What is the most serous problem with our system of socio-political arrangements and institutions? it is our systems of property law and taxation. And, specifically, our treatment of nature as a legitimate asset for private property claims. In terms used by John Stuart Mill and other political economists, "land" (i.e., nature) was correctly understood to be the source of wealth, a passive factor of production. Wealth came from the application of labor and capital goods to nature, to land. What was produced is certainly legitimate private property, to be utilized and consumed as the producer desires (subject to restrictions that protect the equal right of all others to enjoy what they produce).
   
   As Adam Smith wrote, the "rent" of land is wealth that is societally-created by aggregate demand and aggregate public and private investment in societal amenities. Thus, rent should be the primary (perhaps the only, as argued by Henry George) source of public revenue. Societal collection of rent would achieve the objectives Professor Victor describes: full employment, the elimination of poverty and sustainable use of our environmental resources.
   
   This is the message of a small but growing number of economists, built on the seminal work of former University of California professor Mason Gaffney. And, most recently, by former World Bank economist Joseph Stiglitz.
   
   Absent a dramatic change in how government raises its revenue -- taxing rents of land and land-like assets (e.g., the broadcast spectrum and even take-off and landing slots at airports), all other measures will be countered by rising speculative holding of land in all its forms.