The structure of the climate summits ensures that the most lethal interests prevail, by design. Here are some better models.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian
How economic power leads inexorably to environmental destruction.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 29th November 2023
Don’t they have children? Don’t they have grandchildren? Don’t rich and powerful people care about the world they will leave to their descendants? These are questions I’m asked every week, and they are not easy to answer. How can we explain a mindset that would sacrifice the habitable planet for a little more power or a little more wealth, when they have so much already?
Above is the video of a presentation I made at NESTA in London on 15th November with discussants Claire Mellior and Martin Wolf. I reproduce (AI generated) timestamps in the shownotes of the video below.
Toxic chemicals deliberately added to sewage are being spread across a vast area of farmland, with potentially catastrophic effects. We’re suing the government to stop it.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 18th November 2023
The government, under its own new definition, is an extremist organisation.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 19th November 2023
Prosper’s Director of Research and Policy, Tim Helm, was interviewed by Cameron Murray for the Fresh Economic Thinking podcast on 9 November 2023. Their conversation covered the relationship between the prices of land and housing, how to define and measure landbanking, incentives for landbanking, the relationship between landbanking and housing supply, and methodological issues in […]
Presentation to the Planning Institute of Australia’s Victorian Conference, October 13, 2023 Today I want to take you on a rapid intellectual journey, a therapeutic crash-course, to convince you all to stop worrying about housing affordability – and instead, to learn to love high land values. Land takes the gains… Riddle me this: When planners […]
The biggest winner from the referendum on the weekend is John Stuart Mill.
There’s a strand of left-wing orthodoxy these days that deprecates free speech and brands opposing viewpoints as dangerous wrongthink. This firebrand mode of thinking is excellent at producing an engaged cabal of supporters, but its fruits will often face oblivion in the privacy of one’s own voting booth.
Prosper Australia today welcomed the announcement that the Vacant Residential Land Tax (VRLT) will be expanded to include suburban undeveloped and regional sites.
I find it hard to understand how passionate some folks are about voting Yes or voting No. Not because I do not understand passion, but because the cases for either position are so unconvincing.
I discover that I don’t seem to have cross-posted this old essay previously published in the Mandarin, and since this is my place of record (where I can make notes to myself in the comments of new sources, thoughts or developments) I am doing it now.
Victoria's new Housing Partnership shows a lot of promise. The devil will be in the detail. Prosper Australia unpacks the issues.
132nd Henry George Address by Professor Ross Garnaut Australia: Made for Free Trade and a Tax on Rent (Transcript of speech recorded at the Kelvin Club, Melbourne, 7 September 2023. Lightly edited for clarity and brevity.) Thanks, Tim, and very good to be here with this group of people. Very good to know that such […]
If we’re going to have to rethink our tax system, rent-seeking seems a good place to start. Perhaps if we taxed productive profit less than its unproductive counterpart, we’d have the seedlings of a system better designed to meet what the Intergenerational Report warns us is coming.