RWB 54 Alanna Hartzok: Land Value Taxation and the Prosperity It Causes

Reality with Bruce de Torres
54 Alanna Hartzok: Land Value Taxation and the Prosperity It Causes

Alanna Hartzok discusses land value taxation, the prosperity it causes, and Henry George, its great 19th Century American exponent. (See The Henry George School of Social Science, hgsss.org.)

Alanna is the Administrative Director and a United Nations NGO Representative for the International Union for Land Value Taxation (theiu.org), where she helps administer land value tax implementation projects on five continents.

At theiu.org (and YouTube) is her video, CLASS AND RACE VIEWED THROUGH A LAND LENS, “a sweeping overview of centuries of the land problem from England to the United States, its impact on class and race, and how this is relevant to wealth inequality and other social problems today.”

This free course, LAND RIGHTS AND LAND VALUE CAPTURE, is also at theiu.org. (Click Resources, then Course.)

Alanna is the author of THE EARTH BELONGS TO EVERYONE, which received the Radical Middle Book Award.

Alanna initiated tax reform legislation that passed with a nearly unanimous vote, enabling the nearly 1,000 towns of Pennsylvania to shift their tax base off of buildings and onto land value.

She posts at AlannaHartzok.Substack.com. And she and I participate in TrineDay Publishing’s Valediction Roundtables, which explore JFK’s vision of peace and Henry George’s economics.

Topics discussed:

Land value taxation, which Alanna discovered after being concerned with big questions, such as what’s the cause of poverty? What’s the cause of war, homelessness, and other social problems?

She learned the “original” economics, economic justice, economics made simple, clear, and actionable, at the Henry George School of Social Science, hgsss.org.

Henry George was a 19th Century American who wrote PROGRESS AND POVERTY: An inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of increase of want with increase of wealth …the Remedy. He spelled out how wealth inequality grows in societies, like ours, which are based on private profiteering in land.

He went back through centuries. He saw a perennial wisdom teaching that understood that you cannot treat land like a market commodity and have a fair society. He predicted that if we did not address “the land problem,” the United States would become grossly unequal in terms of its wealth and power (our condition today) and democracy would breakdown, because democratic institutions must be founded on the democratic human right to our planet’s land and natural resources as a birthright. (Hence the title of Alanna’s book, THE EARTH BELONGS TO EVERYONE.)

His book, PROGRESS AND POVERTY, sold like wildfire. Only the Bible was sold better. It launched a very important movement quickly. He became famous as a speaker, as well known as Mark Twain, sought not only in the United States but in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and Ireland.

He moved to New York City. He was urged to run for mayor and did. He lost. Apparently, many votes were thrown into the rivers. It was the time of the corrupt Tammany Hall. He ran a second time, against his doctor’s wishes, had a stroke two days before the election, and died.

His funeral was massive. Comparable to that of Abraham Lincoln. Maybe more people were in the streets for Henry George than for Lincoln.

TheIU.org - The International Union for Land Value Taxation

LAND RIGHTS AND LAND VALUE CAPTURE
Course - TheIU.org

THE EARTH BELONGS TO EVERYONE
Books - TheIU.org

On YouTube
Class and Race Viewed through a Land Lens

The Henry George School of Social Science
Home - hgsss.org

AlannaHartzok.Substack.com
Aradhana Airwaves | Alanna Hartzok | Substack

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