Shepheard-Walwyn is pleased to announce that The Predator Culture by Fred Harrison has been entered into the non-fiction section of The People’s Book Prize this Autumn. Readers are invited to participate in the selection of a winner by casting their vote at thepeoplesbookprize.com

The Predator Culture

Fred Harrison draws on global-wide case studies to show how the violent birth of nation-states, whether the result of territorial conquests or colonialism, splits the population into two classes, victors and vanquished. This division is perpetuated and legitimated through the system of land tenure. The pathological consequences – as diverse as failed states, organised crime (mafia), religious fundamentalism and the re-emergence of piracy – are the result of the violent uprooting of the original inhabitants from their homelands.

Understanding the territorial basis of political power and wealth is the pre-requisite, Fred Harrison argues, for making sense of issues as diverse as genocide, narco-gangsterism, terrorism and fascism. The struggle over land and resources, he contends, is at the root of all of today’s global crises. Some attempts are being made to restore land to those in need, ranging from the offer of land in Afghanistan to the Taliban as an inducement to set aside their violent strategies, to the sharing of the rents of oil in Nigeria to entice eco-warriors into mainstream politics. But these piecemeal tactics fail to synthesise the conditions for peace and prosperity.

The Predator Culture provides a framework for truth and reconciliation in what has become a violent world that is slipping dangerously out of control.

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Our latest book, John Clare: Voice of Freedom, by R S Attack, is now available. The book is a unique look at the life and poetry of John Clare, who lived at a time of great upheaval during the Enclosure movement. The book is a must read for anyone interested in great English poets, but the book focuses in particular on the economic and social consequences of an important period in history; the effects of the enclosures are still with us today.

Buy now: from Shepheard-Walwyn or Amazon

Don’t forget to tell us what you think of the book – leave a comment here or post a review on Amazon.

In the Preface to his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation David Ricardo wrote:

‘… without a knowledge of [the law of rent], it is impossible to understand the effect of the progress of wealth on profits and wages, or to trace satisfactorily the influence of taxation on different classes of the community’

In Ricardo’s Law Fred Harrison illustrates, with reference to Britain, how the failure of economists, policy-makers and politicians to understand the Law of Rent impacts on wages, profits and taxation. In the essay below, Michael Hawes provides a short explanation of the concept of the Law, also known as ‘Ricardo’s Law’ after the economist who provided the first scientific explanation of how it works.

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The Law of Rent, as defined by the economist David Ricardo in 1809, states: ‘The rent of land is determined by the excess of its product over that which the same application can secure from the least productive land in use.’

What does this sentence mean and what possible relevance can an obscure theory propounded by a near forgotten stockbroker have in the complicated economic structure we live in today? The answer is that if politicians understood this simple proposition it would make their job of collecting taxes so much easier and more efficient. In fact they could reduce the national debt and budget deficit in a very short time.

The first thing we have to understand is that the term ‘rent’ as used by the classical economists is different from the term we use today to describe payment for the hire of a premise, tool or piece of equipment. Economic rent is a surplus, not a charge.
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by Adrian Hoare

George Osborne has invited the public’s views on what might be done to help the country out of its current financial crisis. It is to be hoped that he will seriously consider all that is suggested; he needs to be looking out for ideas that are different from those that have hampered genuinely sustainable economic development for decades. He would do well to bend his eye in the direction of the taxation system; not to see if a little tweak here and there might increase revenue without too much pain but to look at the fundamentals.

We do not design road vehicles with unround wheels but we have an economy with comparably unsuitable features. The only circular motion is in those ideas that set off in promising directions, only to return to their starting point.

In 2007 we suffered a financial earthquake. It would be foolish in the extreme to rebuild our economy upon the same foundations whose weakness led to the catastrophe. The banks were blamed and they were certainly very irresponsible. So too were the government(s) who failed to impose sufficiently robust regulations on them, to prevent them from their own stupidity. It is said that the banks could not be allowed to fail because they are vital to the economy. The logical argument following from that is that the banks should be nationalised or at least kept under close regulation, however much they howl about it.

It is openly admitted that there is a financial economy and a real economy. Something is wrong there. Without a real economy there would be no need for banks.
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Take the example of a parent and child: it is possible both to punish and to love when the punishment is directed to the good – that of teaching the child right and wrong. However, if one claimed to love a person while exploiting them, the spectre of hypocrisy would immediately arise.

It is sometimes said, albeit cynically, that the rich help the poor in order to enjoy their privilege with a better conscience – a barren attitude, considering the generous response to disaster appeals, yet one that may conceal some truth.

The Christianity of Wilberforce could not live with the barbaric injustice of slavery. For, how could you love your neighbour as yourself if you enslaved him? Yet many lived with such a system. It was simply how it was, so the mindset of the status quo was left unquestioned.

Today, it is a common cry that the rich are getting richer while the poor still languish.  Secular, socialistic governments have tried to mitigate with subsidies and benefits, yet little changes. Indeed, after thirteen years of Labour Party rule, the gap between rich and poor has widened. Yet both the previous and the current government would claim to be benevolent in intention. No doubt they are, but the fact remains that poverty remains to blight most corners of the kingdom.

The elements of nature are given to all. None are labelled with predestined ownership. To claim the Sun’s light, or the air we breathe, would be ridiculous. And the gentle rain from heaven, as Shakespeare calls it, falls on all, alike. However when it courses on the land as rivers, the element of ownership enters. For land, the fourth great element, is subject to the law of real estate – in other words, private ownership. This is man’s decree, not nature’s, for nature gives her elements free.

Here man departs from nature’s law and the consequence is inequity. Sometimes this inequity is grotesque, with palatial mansions and teeming ghettos living in proximity. Yet such is the world order, the mindset of the status quo that no one questions.

Who would call this just?

How can we profess to love our neighbour when we perpetuate this gross inequity in our midst? Yet, the mindset of the status quo has ruled for centuries. With custom so ingrained, it’s not surprising that the glaring parent of inequity is left unchallenged while socialistic answers are adopted. Yes, centuries of custom are convincing, but we might well ask – how many years does it take before a wrong becomes a right?

‘Poverty is not a normal state of society. It is a disease produced by the stupidity of men.’ Andrew MacLaren

Standing For Justice, A Biography of Andrew MacLaren MP by John Stewart

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In this YouTube clip, Joshua Vincent, executive director of the Henry George Foundation of America, introduces himself, his organisation, and his mission, and asks why, in the richest country in the world, does poverty exist?

www.ourcommonwealth.org