Or why the green movement has trouble accepting the one policy that will guarantee their objectives.
Land Value Tax (LVT) in its full theory is very complicated and
to understand it properly requires a lot of thought and to mechanistically work
out how it is fundamental to the protection of nature & natural assets.
I myself have been attacked at conferences by well-meaning greens
who’s hostility and almost zeal at condemning LVT leaves me depressed and
confused as to their thinking. Why such people should have such anger, denial
and almost willful need not to educate themselves of the economics of environmental
destruction needs further investigation.
My best answer for this came from the similarities to the title theme of
Robert M. Pirsig's bestselling book ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’
exploring the ‘Metaphysics of Quality’.
Even though LVT is official Green Party Policy, explaining LVT
to the leaders of the green movement can be arduous and their efforts to promote
it both within and without the green party can seem lacklustre and
unconvincing.
I am a huge fan of our one Green MP Caroline Lucas who bravely
put forward a private members bill on LVT this year. Caroline has presented the bill in
the media, on shows such as Radio 4's Today Programme, so well done. But I can tell from her tone in interviews that she
does not truly see why LVT is the one policy that will achieve all of the Green
Party’s aims and does not have the ability to communicate it. (then again who
does….)
For those that need to investigate LVT the basic idea is that any
‘tax’ taken from a natural monopoly is good for the economy as it is taken from
‘the unearned income of monopoly’ and not from the productive economy, so more
jobs and a healthier economy. The Land Value tax shifts the economic topography
to make natural resource efficiency a certainty. It costs more, so all the
decisions made by everybody will naturally tend to the more efficient use of
the natural resources that are subject to tax such as land, oil, carbon and
minerals etc. LVT is also the most redistributive of taxes and will vastly
reduce income inequality. So with LVT we can have our cake and eat it. A world
that will eliminate poverty, use natural resources as efficiently as possible,
create more areas for wildlife and make our overall economy better, what’s not
to like! Or more precisely why do so many people not understand.
While pondering why people in the ‘green’ movement have trouble
understanding just why LVT is so important, often becoming hostile. My own thinking
on this is because LVT, as a policy, is a mechanistic approach to environmental
protection, it is logical and is formed from a deep understanding of economic
processes. Some people fear mechanistic approaches and look to cultural and
emotional solutions.
I now refer to this as the ‘Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance’
problem. In so much that one of the central messages of the book; that a
motorcycle rider did not want to maintain his bike because he blamed science
and scientific approaches as responsible for hurting humanity, war famine,
environmental destruction and so distrusted any mechanistic approach to life.
This caused him to fear maintaining his bike properly and it would regularly
break down causing a vicious cycle of distrust in mechanical things. The
protagonist used this example to look at the relationship between peoples
thinking and how that affects their ability to cope with real day to day
problems and how to get them to adopt simple mechanistic approaches that aided
their everyday lives. Such is Zen
In my critique of those in the Green Movement that are hostile
to LVT they are like the protagonist’s friend ‘John Sutherland’ who refuses to
maintain his motorcycle. These people are often the personality types that are
interested mostly in gestalts; the romantic viewpoints, focused on being culturally
and emotionally ‘green’ and not on rational analysis.
Myself and my Fellow LVT supporting greens are like the protagonist
and those who seek to comprehend the details and inner workings, and master the
mechanics of either motorcycles or the economics of environmental destruction
and world poverty.
To the Green sceptics of LVT – please read Prisig’s book and
replace the motorcycle with the science of economics. An understanding of
economics is not ‘ugly’ or ‘dehumanising’. You must open your mind so it is capable
of seeing the beauty of technology & economics. Economic science, just like
motorcycle maintenance, may be seen as dull and involve tedious mental drudgery
or it could be the most enjoyable, enlightening and rewarding pursuit in trying
to protect our planet and those that live upon it; it all depends on attitude.
Prisig did not discuss economics and he himself was not that
aware of it, but to those of us who ponder the issues of creating a ‘green
economy’ we can look at a wealth of books that have looked into this. Any book
by economist Henry George or Fred Harrison will be a good starting point for understanding
the concepts behind Land Value Tax and will form the mechanistic understanding
that allows then to understand Green economics. Trying to understand Green
economics without such underpinning concepts is going to be frustrating and
unrewarding.
So Land Value Tax is deeply ‘Zen’……
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThere are several varieties of greens who will be resistant to land value tax, and several varieties who will embrace it. Among the resistant are (with considerable overlap):
ReplyDeleteThe conventional non-conformists. They belong to a cultural subgroup with its own non-conformist dogma, and think there is only one way to not conform. They can find reasons why anything else is selling out.
The greener than thou: Green tax shifts are not green enough. They think people should not be motivated by profit, but should put the environment first, and the wolf should lie down with the lamb, and so on.
The watermelons: When the green movement was first beginning, socialists said things like, "you can't change the world by eating granola." But as their influence grew and the world *did* begin to change, and as socialist influence began to wane, many socialists joined the green movement. Unfortunately, Marxist analysis confounds land with capital, and has never accepted the notion that individual enterprise can be beneficial if the tax structure punishes rent-seeking and rewards production. Some socialists, like Michael Hudson, are changing that.
The parade leaders. In every movement, whether right or left, has people who figure out where the movement is headed, run to the head of the movement, and act like they are leading the parade. They are uncomfortable with uncertainty as to whether the parade might turn without them, and vice versal
However, there are also the analysts, who study until get to the bottom of things, and the self-actualizers, who just plain love challenges. These are the people who actually lead movements, although it takes the others a long time to catch on.
Good representation of the issues RE.
ReplyDeleteAs Dan says, the watermelons, I think they have a big impact on the marginal thoughts about economics among the Greens. That is, I find that most Greens I know are usually your average centrists. But they apply Marxists analysis as a sort of fence around the middle; poverty is always a fault/side-effects of markets and capitalism, noticeable wealth, however earned is suspicious, and any tax proposal seem to be analysed on its merits in taking from the "rich". The latter is not always easily understood when it comes to LVT.
Also, a lot of Greens seem to have a secret dream, "if only I owned a lot of land, I would do good things with it/leave the trees alone/not hunt", the idea of a land tax sort of gets in the way of this.
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