"When writers, painters, musicians, filmmakers suspend their judgment and blindly yoke their art to the service of the nation (i.e. Nationalism), it's time for all of us to sit up and worry." Arundhati Roy.

The Commons

Definition: The Commons, n., gifts of nature and society; the wealth we inherit or create together and must pass on, undiminished or enhanced, to our children; a sector of the economy that complements the corporate sector.

The Global Commons, and The Law of Rent.
For well over two hundred years, an increasingly worldwide network of people have been working towards establishing economic justice. Their efforts were inspired by the 18th century French Physiocrats, (French economists who believed that the wealth of nations was derived solely from the value of land agriculture or land development), followed by classical economists, such as English economist ADAM SMITH (1723-1790) and his book 'The Wealth of Nations' published in 1776. These ideas were developed further by English philosopher and economist JOHN STUART MILL (1806-1873), English philosopher HERBERT SPENCER (1820-1903), and English economist DAVID RICARDO (1772-1823).

David Ricardo's ideas, on the Law of Rent or Resource Rent, inspired 19th century American journalist and political economist Henry George to write Progress and Poverty, the all-time best-selling book on economics!

"George's theme was that the fundamental reason for the maldistribution of wealth in a free enterprise society was the private ownership of natural resources. He did not advocate the nationalisation of land as did some of his socialist contemporaries but a concentration of revenue-raising, or a single tax as it came to be known, upon the value of land, so that its yearly worth or economic rent would be taken into the public treasury in lieu of taxes on labour and production. He regarded the economic rent or annual value of raw land as society's natural income, increasing as the need for revenue grew with expanding population and social progress. These were not original ideas for they followed the track blazed by the French Physiocrats and later by political economists such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, JS Mill and Herbert Spencer. But George carried their implications further than his predecessors and expressed them in unsurpassed prose and with compelling logic."
M.D. Herps, FAIV, DipLaw (BAB), FSLE. 27 May 1988 –Deputy Valuer-General New South Wales and valuation consultant to the Commonwealth Grants Commission.

Over several decades, Winston Churchill and Lloyd George tried to promote Ricardo's theories, but the House Lords consistently rejected them –by narrow margins.

Professor Mason Gaffney's authorative "The Corruption of Economics" lays out the history of the suppression of classical economics, by vested interests, in favour of neo-classical economics, –promoting real estate speculation and escalating land prices, which lead to repeated recessions.

The Land Values Research Group recently defined and studied the effects of property bubbles in Unlocking the Riches of Oz: A Case Study of the Social and Economic Costs of Real Estate Bubbles, 1972 to 2006, which is freely available at www.lvrg.org.au.

English economics journalist Fred Harrison't book Ricardo's Law shows why the welfare state has not worked.
Click here to view Fred's short YouTube film:
Ricardo's Law ~ The Great Tax Clawback Scam

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"From public schools and universities to public lands and other natural resources, from the media with their broadcast and digital spectrums to scientific discovery and medical breakthroughs, a broad range of the global commons is shifting from public responsibility to private exploitation."
Bill Moyers
"When the missionaries first came, they had the bible and we had the land. Now we have the bible and they have the land."
Archbishop Desmond Tutu