Cobden and Rogers

EndorsementsLeave a Comment

Richard Cobden

“Cheated, Robbed and Bamboozled”

“I warn ministers, and I warn landlords and the aristocracy of this country, against forcing on the attention of the middle and industrial classes, the subject of taxation ….. If you were to bring forward the history of taxation in this country for the last 150 years, you will find as black a record against the landowners as even in the Corn Law itself.

I warn them against ripping up the subject of taxation. If they want another league at the death of this one – if they want another organisation and a motive – then let them force the middle and industrial classes to understand how they have been cheated, robbed and bamboozled …..

How To Abolish Unfair Taxation

EndorsementsLeave a Comment

by Clarence Darrow, Attorney, Philosopher

Clarence Darrow of Chicago became known and respected the world round as a courageous and intelligent foe of special privilege and monopoly.

His social and economic philosophy rested on the same basic principles as those of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.
Everybody nowadays is anxious to help do something for the poor, especially they who are on the backs of the poor; they will do anything that is not fundamental. Nobody ever dreams of giving the poor a chance to help themselves. The reformers in this state have passed a law prohibiting women from working more than eight hours in one day in certain industries – so much do women love to work that they must be stopped by law. If any benevolent heathen see fit to come here and do work, we send them to gaol or send them back where they came from.

Winston Churchill on Site Rating

Casey JenkinsEndorsements, HistoryLeave a Comment

LAND PRICE AS A CAUSE OF POVERTY

Winston Churchill’s Speech in the House of Commons, 4 May 1909, in response to Mr AJ Balfour, Leader of the Opposition

The immemorial custom of nearly every modern State, the mature conclusions of many of the greatest thinkers, have placed the tenure, transfer, and obligations of land in a wholly different category from other classes of property. The mere obvious physical distinction between land, which is a vital necessity of every human being and which at the same time is strictly limited in extent, and other property is in itself sufficient to justify a clear differentiation in its treatment, and in the view taken by the State of the conditions which should govern the tenure of land from that which should regulate traffic in other forms of property.

The Middle Class Must Not Fail Or All Is Lost

Karl FitzgeraldInternational2 Comments

TAYLOR CALDWELL

THE MIDDLE CLASS

With the rise of the Industrial Civilization in the world about two hundred years ago, there also arose a social body which we know as the middle class. Before that, most of the world suffered under a feudal system in which the people were truly slaves of their governments in all things. There was no strong buffer between them and their despotic rulers, no assurance of freedom to pursue commerce and to live decently, to keep the fruits of their labor and hold the paying of tribute at a minimum. The middle class made the dream of liberty a possibility, set limits on the government, fought for its constitutions, removed much of governmental privilege and tyranny, demanded that rulers obey the just laws as closely as the people, and enforced a general civic morality.

Peace, Justice, and Economic Reform

Karl FitzgeraldInternationalLeave a Comment

The Henry George Lecture at St. John’s University: March 18, 1997

Nicolaus Tideman

There is a bumper sticker that says, “If you want peace, then work for justice.” At a superficial level, this simple slogan contains an important half-truth. At a deeper level, it contains a more profound half-truth. To understand these half-truths and why they are only half true, we need to know what peace is, what justice is, and we need to understand the relationship between the two. So in this talk I want to explore the meanings of peace and justice, their relationship, and the role of economic reform in attaining both.