Editorial:

The Green Party’s policy on Land  Value Taxation is up again for debate.  It is therefore opportune to reprint  here the article on it from Green  Economics, published in 1999. I will  also be distributing copies at the  coming Green Party conferences.

A point well made in that article, on  the way conventional economics has  been distorted to misrepresent and  dismiss the issue, applies equally to the  arguments for monetary reform, which,  like those for LVT, were widely  debated and supported in the early  years of last century, and it is now an  issue climbing back to public attention  and concern.

In that earlier period, the proponents  of these two issues mostly saw each  other as missing the ‘true answer’ to  the social problems their proposed  reform addressed. It is encouraging  that now, increasingly, they are realising  that both issues are vital and complementary.

Against the proposals for monetary  reform, it is often submitted that any  country implementing it would face  concerted and disastrous international  action to wreck it. Though this is very  much debateable, it would anyway  effectively be addressed by the implementation of the Simultaneous Policy  proposal, as provisionally adopted by  Caroline Lucas, among many others –  see the website http://www.simpol.org/dossiers/dossier-UK/ html-UK/interface-UK.html or http://www.sustecweb.co.uk/ Monetary%20Reform%20-% 20Making%20it%20Happen.htm

“The Simultaneous Policy is a peaceful  political strategy to democratically drive  all the world's nations to apply global  solutions to global problems, including  combating global warming and environmental destruction, regulating  economic globalization for the good of  all, and delivering social justice, peace  and security, and sustainable prosperity.”

I intend to submit a motion at the  England & Wales Green Party’s AGM  this Autumn to re-introduce a policy of  monetary reform into its manifesto of  policies. I invite anyone prepared to  help draft it to contact me.

As a support for this, I will be distributing copies of James Robertson’s  Feasta article as reprinted here on  pages 6-11. A common objection I  have had to my advocacy of monetary  reform is that ‘it is a minor/single  issue’, and claims to be ‘a panacea’. I  frequently have to deny both these  accusations, and assert that it is a  common, underlying factor to the  many problems the Green Party seeks  to address. I hope James’ article will  be found to support this assertion.

The tragedy of the recent tsunami  tragically illustrates the unreal hold the  money system has on society. Clearly,  every available source of physical aid  should immediately have provided  without hesitation. There should have  been no question of ‘where’s the  money to come from?’ — “Whatever is  physically possible and socially desirable must be financially possible”!

Money is a creation of law and custom,  and its nature is subject to change by  law. Governments throughout the  world should have been marshalling  the physical goods and people to  assist in the rescue operation and  clean-up, and providing all money  needed for this — as they always do for  warfare!