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Margaret Thatcher was a self-described libertarian from that era. She did something quite different with the single tax problem; she altered the class structure of the country.

No single piece of legislation has enabled the transfer of so much capital wealth from the State to the people. MP Michael Heseltine on the sale of publicly owned housing (Right to Buy), UK (1980)

The introduction of the Right to Buy policy in the 1980s can be considered one of the greatest intergenerational injustices in recent political history. David Kingman at the Intergenerational Foundation, UK (2017)

The Single Tax broke through in elections on two occasions. In 1886, Henry George ran for mayor of New York, leading a party of labour unions, Catholics, and Georgites with a land value tax platform. The Pope himself took part in stopping him. Then, in 1906, in Great Britain, the Liberal Party, propelled by an historic re-emergence of the land reform movement, won a landslide general election victory. The House of Lords sacrificed its legislative veto to halt land value taxation.Two elections, two crises.

The single tax (i.e. the shifting of taxes from labor and capital onto land value) had met formidable opposition. The single tax as something one can vote for ended in Great Britain soon after the Great Warat that time of revolution, imperial dissolution, regicide, epidemic and economic dislocation. Very close to home, Ireland, where the land question had raged for decades, was at war with the British Empire. From Londons point of view, it was not a time for experiments.

The [Liberal-Conservative] coalition dug the grave wide and deep. They flung into it the Land Taxes of Mr Lloyd George, the Land Valuation of Mr Lloyd George and the Land Policy of Mr Lloyd George. They dumped earth upon it. They stamped down the ground over the grave. They set up a stone to commemorate their victory for testimony to the passing stranger. Here buried forever, lies the Land Crusade.Never, it would seem, was a cause so sensationally and utterly destroyed. C. F. G. Masterman, politician and commentator (1920) quoted by FML Thompson in The Land Question in Britain, 1750-1950

Exactly the same thing happened on the Left. The Left was very closely linked to Georgism. A majority of Fabian-socialists either were or had been Georgists, and the Fabian society was formed by activists minted by Henry George himself, by his speeches and debates in the 1880s. Years of trying to reconcile Georgism and socialism followed, but the vanguard of the Left then also abruptly dropped the single tax.

The attempt to put into force any such crude universal measurewhich, it may be explained, is very far from being contemplated by the Labour Partywould inevitably jeopardise the very substance of the nation. B. and S. Webb, A Constitution for a Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain (1921),quoted in Peter dA. Jones Henry George and British Socialism.

The Representation of the People Act (1918) had added millions to the electorate. The pre-war land crusade, which was especially intense in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, had driven three general election victories in a row. What might it do now, with so many new landless voters? For the sakes of both the old right and the new left, liberalism, this thought-out, land-centric incarnation, had to be buried.

Disappearance was, indeed, achieved, but the burial was a hoax. The Single Tax to this day, lays living, etherized upon a table. The patient is tended to, kept under, by a staff of ex-devotees; lords, liberals, leftists unable to let go completely. Many were libertarians. Libertarianism was borne on the Georgist wave, just as socialism was. But unlike socialism, libertarianism naturally developed on Georgist lines: both are classically liberal and anti-monopoly. Albert J. Nock, the greatest libertarian critic of The State, had no doubt:

[Henry George] was the only [reformer] who believed in freedom, or (as far as I could see) had any approximation to an intelligent idea of what freedom is, and of the economic prerequisites to attaining it.

But post-World War II libertarianism also reached for the anaesthetic. A heavy price was paid. In order to sever roots and accept in toto the current system of state-founded, state-protected land monopoly libertarianism had to sacrifice its first principle: self-ownership. It also had to withdraw its original and most powerful critique of The State. In 1939 the author of Taxation is Robbery, Frank Chodorov,had written: The socialization of rent would destroy taxes. The State (as we know it) would disappear.

That taxation is intolerable, of course, remains central to libertarian rhetoric. But the rhetoric is thin. Does libertarianism today claim, as Chodorov did, that taxation itself can be abolished, transforming the State into something else, free of systemic privilege, i.e. minarchy? Would it say this: The [modern doctrine of taxation] does not distinguish between property acquired through privilege and property acquired through production. It cannot, must not, do that, for in so doing it would question the validity of taxation as a whole. If taxation were abolished, for instance, the cost of maintaining the social services of a community would fall on rentthere is no third sourceand the privilege of appropriating rent would disappear

The answer is no. In 1957, a former student of Georgism, Murray Rothbard, stepped in and ended the single tax debate within mainstream libertarianism. He simply denied the existence of rent: The first consequence of the single tax, then, is that no revenue would accrue from it.

Despite the misunderstanding, he got away with it. Chodorov had placed the single tax at the center of the libertarian critique of the state. The prolific Rothbard, the quietist, the etherizer, overwrites Taxation is Robbery. The meme taxation is theft was then appropriated and etherized and has become a mantra. State transformation via tax reform is a cancelled option; the most a libertarian can aspire to now is tax evasion: We should welcome every new loophole, shelter, credit, or exemption, and work, not to shut them down but to expand them to include everyone else, including ourselves.

Such was the transition to Royal Libertarianism.

Margaret Thatcher was a self-described libertarian from that era. She did something quite different with the single tax problem; she altered the class structure of the country. Before Thatcher became Prime Minister, she was grilled on land economics and the unearned increment by William F. Buckley (a Georgist) on television. She skillfully tiptoed around the subject but did, when pressed, give a nod in the direction of the single tax. She clearly understood the Georgist diagnosis of economic malaise. However, a few years later, after the election, she administered the anti-Georgist cure. The policy was called Right to Buy, the sale of publicly-owned real estate (council houses and, crucially, the value of their locations) to tenants. Around two million took up the offer. A boom in the wider real estate market followed. The government, in the Parliamentary debate on the bill, was frank: No one can dispute that the home owner in recent decades has gained immensely from the fact of ownership. The gain has accrued partially from the judgement and thrift associated with the saving to buy, but even more from the tax-free windfall gains that have accrued to virtually everyone once he has bought his own home.

Heseltine then went on to describe how the tenant paying rent (i.e. the non-landowner) is in a very different boat. The tenant receives no benefit from rising land value. On the contrary, the renter pays higher rents. This, of course, is the Georgist thesis on inequality in a nutshell, presented as common fact. But instead of using that fact to advocate for the single tax, it is used to advertise real estate:

There is in this country a deeply ingrained desire for home ownership. The Government believe that this spirit should be fostered. It reflects the wishes of the people, ensures the wide spread of wealth through societyand stimulates the attitudes of independence and self-reliance that are the bedrock of a free society.

The aim was to create an incentive society, a property owning democracy. The home-owner was a variation on libertarianisms entrepreneur ideal-type. This entrepreneur does not see Chodorovs distinction between production and privilege: between an innovator-entrepreneur (production), and a rentier-entrepreneur (privilege).

The Bill has two main objectives: first, to give people what they want, and, secondly, to reverse the trend of ever-increasing dominance of the State over the life of the individual,Heseltine said in 1980.

The language is deflecting; it is the people who want the expansion of the land windfall. Thatcher was following Rothbard to the letter; she achieved the radical expansion of a tax loophole. It was a brilliant move, and it laid in a voting block hostile (we are told) to any attempt to revive the sleeping patient.

In recent years, the results of Right to Buy have been examined. The first Right to Buy house, a two bedroomed terrace was sold in 1980 to its council tenants. Located near enough to London, this is what happened to its price:

1980: 8,000 (average wage 6,000)

2020 301,000 (average wage 36,000)

332,000 (current est.)

That price rise, that increment, was privatized in 1980, an act of enclosure. However, in widening land monopoly, Thatcher ignored the law of monopoly: The big eventually devour the small. The attempt to engineer a permanent property owning middle class has failed.

40% Of Right-To-Buy Homes Now In Hands Of Private Landlords.

In The Huffington Post, 2017

For 25-34 year-olds earning between 22k and 30k per year, home ownership fell to just 27% in 2016 from 65% two decades ago.

In The Guardian, 2018

Adults in their mid-30s to mid-40s are three times more likely to rent than 20 years ago.

In The Guardian, 2020

Margaret Thatcher engineered a new landowner class large enough to keep the Single Tax out of politics. But she used the poison as the cure. The home-owning class is now shrinking. Monopoly feeds on monopoly. The patient lays etherized.

Darren Iversen is an independent student of Georgist history in England.

Link:
Margaret Thatcher, Libertarianism, and the Etherization of the Single Tax - Merion West

Life is made up of stages, and although many believe that reaching 60 means giving in to a life of rest, dont forget you can always enjoy an interesting, fulfilling life. You can go out, travel, explore new places, and there is no reason you cant have an intimate date with escorts in London and be seduced.

Theres nothing quite like arriving at a social event with a stunning and sophisticated escort on your arm with an impeccable presence. Nowadays, many people do, and its a practice that brings class to those who choose the best companions.

After a life of work, effort and dedication, this last stage doesnt have to mean distancing yourself from the activities that you were passionate about in your youth. Your body may not respond in the same way, but maintaining a balanced diet after 30 can drastically prolong your sex life.

Sex shouldnt become taboo after a certain age, as its a natural human practice. Its benefits have been proven through studies that show having an active sex life reflects in an improvement in your physical and mental state.

Couples who have been together for many years can still keep their action going in bed, even after a lot of time has passed. This doesnt often happen, and people older than 60 who maintain an active sex life are considered lucky in our society. Sex reduces the risk of prostate cancer, improves cardiac activity and significantly increases your happiness.

Your brain health can improve, and, considering that the majority of illness during this period affect the brain, it is a good way of keeping deterioration at bay. Your physical appearance will improve, and, of course, your vitality will shoot up. According to David Weeks, people who have sex look 7 years younger than they are.

Your sex drive usually awakens in certain circumstances, and it is clear that youthfulness, vitality and beautyare stimulating for anyone. Opting for an escort is a great idea for men of a certain age, as certain obstacles are skipped over and you can go straight to action.

Many dream of spending the last years of their lives travelling, so its good to have a companion who can make those moments much more pleasurable: good conversation, a night of dancing, and rounding off with great sex is something that doesnt sound so bad if you really think about it.

Nowadays, reaching a certain age is a victory, and fulfilling your desires can be a good way of injecting a little vitality into your old age. Having a gorgeous companion is undoubtedly a great way to keep the flame of passion alight.

Read the original:
The benefits of sex after 60 - The Libertarian Republic

The great American poet Robert Frost once wrote that good fences make good neighbors. He clearly never spent much time in New Jersey.

The Ethicist realizes it must seem like the Garden State is the epicenter for every moral dilemma coming down the, um, turnpike, but hes confident New York (and Connecticut) will get a turn soon enough.

In this episode, the jousting is focused on some upscale properties adjacent to Manasquan River Golf Club in Brielle, on the New Jersey Shore an hour south of Manhattan. There, homeowners have more on their minds than the standard complaints about being pelted by crooked tee shots from the venerable 98-year-old clubs members. Specifically, were talking about a 65-foot-high net one resident erected to keep Manasquans balls from hitting his clapboard. In an area where homes can sell for more than $1 million, the driving-range-style net isnt exactly being embraced as an improvement.

RELATED: Can a club expel you for playing too much golf?

Figuring it was better to ask for forgiveness than for permission, Ron Dana put up the 130-foot-wide net in 2018 without securing any permits from the town. Predictably, neighbors who had their views of the course and the river disrupted howled in protest, and they put up an online petition that has gotten more than 200 signatures. The club came out against the net as an eyesore, too, saying it detracted from the riverfront view members enjoy. Both groups pressed the town to assess Dana for violations of various building and permitting ordinances, which it did in 2019, saying he broke rules limiting the height of fences in Brielle to no more than 12 feet high.

Dana responded by requesting a variance for his net to be exempt from the fence-height rule on the basis that a 12-footer wouldnt be much help against a pop-up slice. The town zoning board was unsympathetic and denied the variance. Undeterred, Dana refused to take down his netso the town and the club sued to force him to remove it. Dana countersued, and the parties are now faced off like the Nights Watch and White Walkers in Game of Thrones just before the dragons get involved. The wall is still up, the neighbors are aggravated, and theres about to be a big fight.

The dispute is one that would make a property developer question his or her capitalist bona fides. On the one hand, those with more libertarian leanings would say people have the right to do with their property as they please. On the other, everybody is a libertarian until something they dont like goes in next door and could tank their property values. Just ask Donald Trump. He fought for nearly five years to keep the Scottish government from putting a wind farm off the coast of his Trump International Golf Club in Aberdeenshire. He not only lost, he had to pay the governments court costs.

Manasquan River is in the fascinating position of being the venue that produces the wayward shots going into Danas yard while arguing he shouldnt have the blight of a net in his yard to prevent it from happening. But before were overcome with empathy for Dana, consider this: Anybody who buys a property adjacent to a golf holeespecially 200 to 250 yards from the tee on the right-hand sidehas to have some idea of what theyre in for. After all, the OG of golf properties, the Old Course Hotel at St. Andrews, has been shrugging off incoming fire from the Road Hole tee for 50 years.

The Ethicists solution? The club, town and Dana should lay down their weapons and make a deal that works for all sides. The club foots the bill for taking down the net and replacing Danas vulnerable windows with shatterproof panes should they get hit (a far less-expensive proposition than the route clubs like Winged Foot have taken when they straight up bought homes that proved to be too close to play). If Dana doesnt agree, the club should be free to put up its own net adjacent to Danas, but cover it with (outward facing) advertisementslike the Green Monster at Fenway Park.

Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.

ARE YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW INVOLVED IN A TRICKY, AMUSING OR JUST PLAIN STRANGE GOLF SITUATION?

Tell us about it, and the Golf Digest Ethicist might write about it in an upcoming column. To submit, describe your issue or send a news link to GolfDigest_Ethicist@discovery.com.

WATCH: GOLF DIGEST VIDEOS

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This intriguing legal battle pits golf-home owner and neighboring course - GolfDigest.com

The profreedom and antiwar movement lost one of its most dedicated champions this past weekend. Jon Basil Utley was born in the Soviet Union in 1934. His Britishborn mother, Freda, had gone there as aprocommunist intellectual and writer. But after his father was spirited away to one of Stalins gulags (where he was executed in 1938), Freda fled with young Jon and became an outspoken critic of the Soviet Union, including in several bestselling books. They eventually emigrated to the United Stateswhere Freda hosted meetings of prominent anticommunists in their home. That is where Jon met many leading intellectuals and activists of the Cold War era, connections that lasted alifetime. He became an accomplished writer in his own right, as well as asuccessful businessman. He traveled extensively.

Jon was anearly ubiquitous presence at DC gatheringsand globally. He attended many events at Cato, as well as Grover Norquists Wednesday meetings at Americans for Tax Reform. He supported Reason magazine and the Reason Foundation, and many other libertarian causes. And he was proud to be associated with The American Conservative magazine, where he served on the board of directors, and as publisher.

Whenever Iencountered Jon at one of these meetings, he would always greet me with awarm toothy smile and afirm handshake. He made me feel so welcomed at these gatherings but he did the same for everyone else as well, as though he appreciated every single person in attendance.

But his warmth and affection for those around him concealed adeep and abiding hatred of Americas wars, and arelated sadness at his fellow Americans apparent disinterest in the suffering these wars caused for innocent men, women, and children all around the world. In meetings, he would often ask questions, or make comments, in his soft, almost lyrical, voice. Most of the time, his remarks conveyed his skepticism of these wars, even as he knew that many of those around him (mostly conservatives, but also some libertarians) wished desperately that he would just sit down and shut up. But that just wasnt his style.

Jon was apeacemaker within the oftenfractious liberty movement, too. His sadness about Americas wars was perhaps only exceeded by his disappointment that his friends in the antiwar movement were fighting with one another. He was anatural bridgebuilder with avery wide circle of acquaintancesand always on the lookout to make introductions and build alliances.

Last year, when it presented Jon alifetime achievement award, The American Conservative prepared afitting tribute video. Iknow and respect many of the people who offered their reflections on why Jon was worthy of such an award. TACs Executive Editor Kelly Beaucar Vlahos called him one of the bravest people that Iknow in Washington. To Ambassador C. Boyden Gray, Jon was one of the most gentle, generous men Ive ever met. My friend John Henry declared, simply, Jon is America.

This was particularly true in the post9/11 era, when conservatives, in particular, really didnt want to hear one of their own questioning the wisdom of George W. Bushs various foreign warsespecially the war in Iraq. Jon would be the only person to stand up and say the Iraq war made no sense, John Henry recalled, when everybody else was saluting, [and chanting] USA! USA!

The Heritage Foundations Lee Edwards counted Jons willingness to stand up for the truth as he sees it, regardless of what others say as his greatest achievement.

All of the wise men of the conservative movement, Edwards explained, believed that the United States should be waging war in Iraq. They would listen as Jon would question why. Then hed sit down. Afew moments of awkward silence typically ensued before the meeting moved onto the next topic.

But, after the luncheon was over, Edwards continued, people would come up to him and say Jon, keep saying that. Keep asking those questionsI havent got enough guts to do it, but you have.

Edwards noted that when the weapons of mass destruction werent found in Iraq, and most Americans came to realize that the war had been aterrible mistake, Jon didnt go around saying I was right. Itold you so and that, too, was to his great credit. Edwards congratulated Utley for speaking up when others were timid.

Jon was alongtime generous donor to the Cato Institute, and for that we are all grateful. But his influence ran much deeper that that. He was awarm and wonderful friend, and an inspiration to those of us who followed in his footsteps.

During this period of COVID-19, when all public gatherings have been postponed or canceled, we have more urgent things to attend to. But, when things return to normal, and Ifor the first time attend one of those meetings where Iwould have expected to see Jons kind smile and reassuring presence, Ifear that that is when the true depths of this loss will really be felt.

Rest in peace, my friend. Your legacy lives on.

Read the rest here:
In Remembrance of Jon Basil Utley (1934-2020) | Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute

READING the comments sections ofTCWand the wider conservative media, it is evident that a war within a war is raging, as proponents of freedom from authoritarian government do battle with proponents of self-sacrifice in the national interest. Yet both are fundamental conservative principles, for conservatives value the interests of both the individual and the community. Matters are immeasurably complicated because such are the unknowns that any calculation of costs and benefits medical, economic, political, psychological is impossible.

I have argued for the lockdown, but I fully recognise that powerful arguments can be marshalled on the other side. As Trump has said, the cure may wreak more damage than the disease.

What, I wonder, would the late Sir Roger Scruton have made of it all? Scruton always veered more to the communal than the libertarian strain of conservatism. For him, the essence of conservatism was family and community, not the market. But at the same time, there was no braver or more principled opponent of communism, of the totalitarian state, or proponent of the importance of private property and of the rights of individuals to enjoy lifes pleasures.

The key to Scrutons conservatism, I think, lies in Burke, Hegel and F H Bradley. For Burke, wisdom lay not in one mans private stock of reason, but in the the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages. For Hegel, the individual is ultimately a social being. We owe an absolute obligation to the state and its institutions because the existence of civil society is conditional on the existence of a state. And for Bradley, it is only because man is first a social being that he can realise himself as an individual. We have found ourselves, writes Bradley, when we have found our station and its duties, our function as an organ in the social organism.

Libertarians and individualists might be shocked at these sentiments and they are easy to misconstrue; but they were second nature to Scruton. He particularly admired Bradleys essayMy Station and its Duties, from which the above quote is taken, and often referred to it. His early essayHegel as a Conservative Thinkerbowled me over when I stumbled across it more than twenty years ago. The subtly woven arguments are beyond my ability to summarise, but consider the import of this sentence from the final paragraph:

An understanding of the human being as a social artefact shows inequality to be natural, power to be good, and constraint to be a necessary ingredient in the only freedom we can value.

Libertarian advocates of the minimal state will heartily disagree and warn of the path to totalitarianism. But for Scruton, the guarantee of our liberties, of the liberties we might truly value,wasthe state. Not a totalitarian state, to be sure, but a state to which we owed profound obligations.

It may be that those obligations have never been greater than they are now.

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The duties we owe to the state - The Conservative Woman