Re-Solving the Economic Puzzle
by Walter Rybeck
Shepheard and Walwyn (2011)
Book Review
In Re-Solving the Economic Puzzle Walter Rybeck, a former urban affairs official in the Johnson, Nixon and Carter administration, proposes to end the ruling elite’s monopoly on land and natural resources through land value taxation*, ie by gradually replacing income, company, sales, and property taxes with a tax on unimproved land and resources.
According to Rybeck, 3% of the US population own 95% of private land. Ted Turner alone owns two million acres, equivalent to nearly two Rhode Islands. In many cities, a few wealthy families own all the prime downtown sites would accomplish all these objectives. The US financial elite also enjoys a monopoly on scarce natural resources, such as oil.
Rybeck’s definition of land includes all the natural resources accompanying it – soil, forests, game, grazing rights, water, oil, gas, minerals and the electromagnetic waves…
View original post 499 more words
