Or….. J'accuse....! Why the Guardian columnists have created BREXIT and the rise of the new fascists of the west & the
calamity of environmental destruction…..
Brexit has caused outrage among the established commentators
of the Gruaniad today and they are all missing the point and only have
themselves to blame. A bold and unfair accusation, but hear me out & I shall explain why I accuse some of the best educated and most thoughtful social commentators on politics and the environment. I voted Remain but I also have serious reservations about Europe
and now want the Left, Liberal and caring Conservatives to own up to their mistakes
and fix them fast. If we do not the ugly rise of fascism and environmental
collapse is a real possibility.
In this blog I liken my message to the Guardian columnists like the pleas of Tolstoy to Tsarist Russia, Michael Flürscheim to the German Imperium or Churchill and Lloyd-George to the British Empire. Only a Land Value Tax can save us from the populous turning to extremism or the elites turning to conflict and war.
After reading the Guardian Columns by Damian Carrington
& Poly Toynbee today I am writing this blog to say I accuse! I accuse you
both of being at the centre of why this country voted for Brexit and that your ill-informed
opinions are creating the very thing you campaign against, the rise of the far
right, growing social inequality, environmental destruction & the
propensity to wage war on the world for resources and power.
UK's out vote is a 'red alert' for the environment, Damian
Carrington:
Dismal, lifeless, spineless – Jeremy Corbyn let us down
again, Polly Toynbee:
The problem with leaders, whether it is a politician our guardian
columnist is they want be seen to be a ‘leader’ and be responsible for solutions,
enacted by rule & law, when what we really need to do is implant policies
that create the incentives, the very legal and economic topology, for everyone
to be rewarded for being a caring neighbour, hardworking risk taker and steward
of our natural heritage. Actions that destroy the environment, rob people of
jobs and stop us looking after others should be not rewarded economically but
penalised.
But our legal system and culture cannot change the fact that
we, under our current economic rules, are disadvantaged when we do charitable work,
our wages are cut when we welcome asylum seekers and immigrants, and can become
instant millionaire if we get a right to exploit natural resources or planning permission
to build a house on land we own. The
incentives are all wrong and none of the political establishment are ready to tackle
the vested interests that are benefiting from this system or acknowledge the
poor who are suffering because of it.
If I discuss this with my working class family members they
are outraged because they too see me as a Guardian reading middle class lefty.
To them the Guardian readers are the very manifestation of hypocrisy and privilege,
wanting lower wages for their plumbers and nannies, while at the same time
wanting their houses to rise in value or the speculative gains from in Buy to
let property?
There silly solutions of taxing workers to provide social
services to counteract the effects of immigration are treated with scepticism by the working classes and rightly so.
As best explained by Leo Tolstoy, perhaps even a more fervent
exponent of Land Value Tax than myself:
“I sit on a man's back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back.”
Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence (1886)
Tolstoy understood that land value tax had the solution to
the rising tensions in pre-revolutionary Russian and pleaded with the nobility
and the Tsar’s chief advisors to implement this policy in a letter to Prince L.
D. Urusov he pleaded:
“If the new Tsar [Nicholas II] would ask me what I would advise him to do, I would say to him: use your autocratic power to abolish the land property in Russia and to introduce the Land Value Tax system; and then give up your power and [grant] the people a liberal constitution.”
Tolstoy said in another letter which foretold the calamity of
revolution and the rise of extremists:
“People do not argue with the teachings of Henry George, they simply do not know it. ... He who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree.”
“Of all indispensable alterations of the forms of social life there is in the life of the world one which is most ripe. ... The method of solving the land problem has been elaborated by Henry George to a degree of perfection that under the existing state organisation and compulsory taxation, it is impossible to invent any better, more just, practical and peaceful solution.”
“Quite difficult matters can be explained even to a slow-witted man, if only he has not already adopted a wrong opinion about them; but the simplest things cannot be made clear even to a very intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he already knows, and knows indubitably, the truth of the matter under consideration.”
“The only thing now that would pacify the people now is the introduction of the Land Value Taxation system of Henry George. The land is common to all; all have the same right to it. Solving the land question means the solving of all social questions.... Possession of land by people who do not use it is immoral — just like the possession of slaves.”
Yes the working classes do not want handouts, they do not
want welfare, what they want is that their labour is valued and the cost of
living is affordable. This is the fundamental message we are getting from Brexit
campaigners across Europe and the rise of Donald Trump in the states. But because our political & social leadership has
failed us so badly, the frightened working classes are running into the arms of
demagogues like Trump, Farage, Le Pen and Geert Wilders, just as they ran into
the clutches of Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini when social tensions rose
to fever pitch when wages stagnated and a financial system based on banking/high land
prices collapsed.
So to, our environment and wildlife do not want endless
government grants funding cushy jobs or grants to pay for ‘signs or wildlife
art installations. What our wildlife and environment need more than any European
Habitats Directive, Water Frameworks Directive, Carbon Trading scheme or a host
of other bureaucratic nonsense is to be not abused. What our wildlife and environment needs is to
have their habitats left alone, to stop polluting the land and air? What our
environment needs is a way for us to all stop benefiting from its abuse.
The
only logical way to do this is to make charges and put taxes on the use and
abuse of land and the natural environment, this will do more than any
complicated directive or law as we will not incentivise people to circumvent these
policies and laws, it will push everyone into finding new ways to increase the efficiency
of land use, leave land for nature, it will incentivise business and people to
pollute less and find new ways to protect the environment as they will financially
benefit from doing so.
Our political establishment – both left and right tell us of
the benefits of immigration, rejoice in economic growth and welcome the ever
increasing costs of housing. Yet they all rob the poor and funnel money into
the pockets of the wealthy and privileged irrespective of their political affiliations.
Thankfully the solution to what caused people to vote for
leaving Europe and rejecting immigration is the same solution to the problems
of social inclusion, jobs, economic success & environmental protection is
all the same: LAND VALUE TAX!
The tax shift to reclaim economic rents as our tax base,
taking taxes off of those who work and aspire to work will fulfil both the
stated objectives of all our main political parties, but they are too afraid of
the vested interests who are farming our economy of the economic rent of
monopoly and the killings to be made destroying our environment and misusing
land.
To enhance social inclusion Land Value Taxes will
drastically reduce housing and welfare costs. This will allow us to take taxes off productive
businesses and jobs causing an explosion in the value of labour, increasing
both jobs & wages. This positive cycle will decrease the costs of housing,
welfare, crime and the distress shown when we welcome asylum seekers and immigrants
to our island home.
The swivel eyed loons lead by George Galloway, Nigel Farage
and Boris Johnson have captured the fundamental truth that no one wishes to
mention, immigration really does push down wages for the poorest, but what is
more it forces up living costs mostly through housing. Letting these demagogues
capture public support is an extreme betrayal of our established politics. The
stupidity and lazy intellectual opinions of our elites could lead us to the calamity of a rise of fascism and an acceleration of environmental collapse.
The centre ground are quick to tell us immigration does improve
our economy & I agree it does, but who receives the benefits of that
economic growth. The recipients of this free handout are landowners, landlords
and those that employ people for less wages.
So if you are a progressive socially minded person who
welcomes helping others and protecting our environment you better start
advocating Land Value Taxes & the elites need to own up to their selfish motivation
protecting their privilege….
