"On another occasion I was at the School of Economic Science on a regular speaking event where the Henry George Foundation was holding its weekly guest speaking event. I was the speaker and my topic was the policy proposal called Location Value Covenants. LVC's are an alternative to Land Value Taxation, the significant difference being that LVC's are a voluntary opt in free choice contract, not statute force. So they are to all intents, a-political. You enter into an LVC contract if you will be better off by doing so, and likewise for the counter-party, the state. Otherwise it does not proceed. Its hardly a complex thing to consider, there are armies of lawyers who are ready to help for a change and LVC's require no new law to adopt. What is more, with LVC's, unlike LVT, adoption will not cause a crash in financial markets. (most of global finance rests on a mortgages foundation(85%))
The chairman of the foundation came up to me just before we started and said this is how we're going to do it: "you pitch your thing and we will be trying our best to tear it apart"
I spent 10 years pitching LVC's to all comers high and low. And though LVC's also collect the economic rents for revenue exactly as does land value taxation, the Georgists were more opposed to them than any other political faction.
This was a real eye opener because LVC's do exactly what LVT does. But the home audience were more opposed to our idea with similar goals, than the fierce opposition they have faced for over a century to LVT from the entirety of the global tax collection infrastructure. It was a fascinating psycho-analysis. And it was this which set me off on a more fruitful pathway.
That is to say, If I have a cosy idea which helps me rest my weary head at night, and has done so for years, and I know a majority of others standing behind me with the same idea with the same effects for that great masse, theres no other idea which has the power to shift it, not in this universe. Debating it is simply not a thing, even if we go to pretend debates religiously
This is the case for every political or religious activity, 'on the earth' - no one is ready to recognise that all we have are 'images' of the world, which we peer through when we use thought to guide us. We are either hypnotised by these images or do not realise we're hypnotised by them. There are no exceptions to this, no one is free from it, especially the highly educated who merely use their intellect as an even more speedy escape route.
Thought creates an image of the world. Then thought worships the image it just created."
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