Georgism: from Michael Hudson

From: Michael Hudson
Date: Mon Oct 2, 2000
Subject: From Ideological Rags to Rags
in 3 generations

Chris asks: So can you give please me a
brief RUN DOWN on what Henry Georgism
consists of in the US - is it a
university, in which case is it a large
one or a small one? Is it a whopping
great fund somewhere? if so, how much?
What else?

Well Chris, you yourself got the key in
your weekend note of "from rags to rags
in three generations." In the first
place came a Celebrity Journalist whose
book sold well and made him money.
Politicians of various stripes selected
him as their front man. But he was a
writer, not a talker; a loner, not
somebody who worked with others. He was
the Mary Baker Eddy of American
economics in the 1890s - neither
Christian nor Scientist, but founding a
hybrid movement that centered around his
(rather dysfunctional) personality. In
America, you always have a few rich nuts
who do nothing but fight with their
children and relatives all their life,
and use their vindictiveness by
bequeathing their fortunes in a bid for
immortality by leaving it to a cult. A
few rich right-wingers in the 1920s or
so funded a movement in memory of
George, who had died over a generation
earlier. Under such circumstances that
"movement" was a funerary cult from the
outset. (Ask Joe for details on this.)

So they had an endowment, but nothing to
spend their money on, as they were anti-
intellectual, misanthropic loners, and
above all much too mediocre to have
enough social scope to see how to
promote a doctrine. (Otherwise they
would have joined the Technocrats,
Socialist Workers Party or Vegetarians.)

By not finding anything - or anyone - to
spend money on, their endowment grew and
grew, largely through property values
(in the case of the Henry George School,
which supplemented its support by
working for Nazi Intelligence and
becoming a center for anti-Semitism in
America down through the 1950s,
recruiting in particular anti-Semitic
self-hating Jews - the same group that
Lyndon LaRouche was able to tap in the
1970s).

So the money grew until finally it
attracted people with little interest in
Single Tax, but various other quirky
things. That's where it now stands. The
bottom line is that every idea and
ideology that can be thought up actually
IS developed by someone and takes a life
of its own. Nature continues to
spontaneously mutate. Then, there is a
struggle for existence. The georgists
help explain what part of the DNA is
missing for a viable political movement.

They are now a geriatric cult with money
to be grabbed. Their demographic and
educational profile is the same as the
Christian Scientists, except that they
have few blacks. No credentials, inward-
looking - about to lose their money and
return to rags. So, Chris, why don't you
apply your law of business families to
the law of political subcultures?

More specifically, Georgism does not
exist in any university. It is anti-
academic. I don't think most HGS board
members even have a college education.
Their long-time head, a virulently anti-
white, anti-feminist misanthropic Negro
(George Collins) didn't even have a
high-school education, I think. They
speak about God a lot. At meals, they
act just like socialists -- each pays
his own money down to the penny. I've
never seen anyone pick up a check --
they don't trust each other to
reciprocate.

Schalkenbach has $18 million in a fund,
as does the School. Lincoln has $100
million, but hates Henry George and is
being sued by Schalkenbach seeking to
raid it. The School of Practical
Philosophy is a branch of England's SES
with $40 million, in real estate.

Like other sectarians, georgists are
always suing each other. Lawyers get
rich off them -- part of your rags to
rags story. There is no intellectual
capital left to run down. It is "running
on empty," which is why the interesting
story now begins: what other nut-group
will take over the movement?

There are sects here that look to other
well-endowed sects to loot just as
corporations seek M&A targets. The prime
suspects to end up in control of
georgism are Scientology, the Moonies,
the KKK, bulgarian intelligence and the
anti-drug movement (of a sort funded by
drug dealesr no doubt).

But at present, the movement has been
taken over by the Mont Pelerin Society
and the Ayn Rand group, so georgism has
become the servants entrance to the
Objectivist movement (known above all
for its subjectivism, naturally). I hope
this nonsense helps.

Michael

.

Relevant Pages

  • Georgism: from Michael Hudson
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  • Georgism: from Michael Hudson
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