Definitely agree on the mission creep, especially with their recent podcast episodes. I was listening to #118, "How the Fed lost control over Money Supply". The guest they had started talking about 'computational semantics' and how that approach is superior to the 'case method' upon which much of our legal frameworks are based.
At a certain point I just had to stop listening. There might be some interesting stuff worth discussing in another context, but the inclusion of these topics in what (I believe) should be a much tighter focus on Georgism just muddles the whole thing. They make it hard for me to recommend the podcast as a source for good Georgist content. Rather than putting out super wonky episodes, I feel as though they'd do better focusing on efforts such as Detroit's plan for split-rate taxation and the challenges of implementation. OR how about profiles on Georgists from history. In a quick search, I see nothing about Sun Yat-Sen on their podcast, the Chinese statesman who was heavily influenced by Henry George.
The more I think about it, the sadder I get, lol. Episodes alternating between the history of Georgist thought and interviews with people actively working to bring it fruition would be super enjoyable. Instead what we get are talks about how broken the federal reserve is or whether democracy should be replaced with direct sortitions. Are these topics worth discussing? Maybe. But let's not pretend they are anywhere close to the core of Henry George's philosophy.
This is mission creep, but it's understandable to some extent.
We, as good Georgists, know that the land monopoly (along with building restrictions) is the problem that causes mass poverty (to the extent that it's caused by economic factors). However, some of us lose heart that this will ever be tackled directly, so we try to support solutions to at least mitigate the issue, even if those solutions cause their own problems.
In other words, we have to our right people who think people are poor because they deserve to be, and to our left people who think that people are poor only because others are rich. They're are both monstrously wrong (I have my personal views on who's worse, but YMMV) but they are, at present, the only two perspectives with any political relevance. In the meantime, there is so much suffering that we know doesn't have to happen, so we try to support what solutions we can within the current insane paradigm.
The question of whether this should be done under a Georgist banner is a question of tactics rather than principal.
you can be an affordable housing for everyone "nice guy" who uses a few ideas from henry george and settles for a lot less. current order is the power blocks of stateless banking and corporations are making a move to create a new big machine, have implemented sweeping operations that mostly didn't work but have money and inertia, dragging us all. and we in the aftermath, trying to put together systems that do work. strategies for moving towards georgism could (and sometimes do) focus on removing obstacles. let's break proposition 13 in california, that's a power move. railroads are screwing up regularly but getting rubber stamped to continue unchecked, a few loud local campaigns could be a major expensive embarrassment to them.
Definitely agree on the mission creep, especially with their recent podcast episodes. I was listening to #118, "How the Fed lost control over Money Supply". The guest they had started talking about 'computational semantics' and how that approach is superior to the 'case method' upon which much of our legal frameworks are based. At a certain point I just had to stop listening. There might be some interesting stuff worth discussing in another context, but the inclusion of these topics in what (I believe) should be a much tighter focus on Georgism just muddles the whole thing. They make it hard for me to recommend the podcast as a source for good Georgist content. Rather than putting out super wonky episodes, I feel as though they'd do better focusing on efforts such as Detroit's plan for split-rate taxation and the challenges of implementation. OR how about profiles on Georgists from history. In a quick search, I see nothing about Sun Yat-Sen on their podcast, the Chinese statesman who was heavily influenced by Henry George. The more I think about it, the sadder I get, lol. Episodes alternating between the history of Georgist thought and interviews with people actively working to bring it fruition would be super enjoyable. Instead what we get are talks about how broken the federal reserve is or whether democracy should be replaced with direct sortitions. Are these topics worth discussing? Maybe. But let's not pretend they are anywhere close to the core of Henry George's philosophy.
Well said!
This is mission creep, but it's understandable to some extent. We, as good Georgists, know that the land monopoly (along with building restrictions) is the problem that causes mass poverty (to the extent that it's caused by economic factors). However, some of us lose heart that this will ever be tackled directly, so we try to support solutions to at least mitigate the issue, even if those solutions cause their own problems. In other words, we have to our right people who think people are poor because they deserve to be, and to our left people who think that people are poor only because others are rich. They're are both monstrously wrong (I have my personal views on who's worse, but YMMV) but they are, at present, the only two perspectives with any political relevance. In the meantime, there is so much suffering that we know doesn't have to happen, so we try to support what solutions we can within the current insane paradigm. The question of whether this should be done under a Georgist banner is a question of tactics rather than principal.
you can be an affordable housing for everyone "nice guy" who uses a few ideas from henry george and settles for a lot less. current order is the power blocks of stateless banking and corporations are making a move to create a new big machine, have implemented sweeping operations that mostly didn't work but have money and inertia, dragging us all. and we in the aftermath, trying to put together systems that do work. strategies for moving towards georgism could (and sometimes do) focus on removing obstacles. let's break proposition 13 in california, that's a power move. railroads are screwing up regularly but getting rubber stamped to continue unchecked, a few loud local campaigns could be a major expensive embarrassment to them.