Summary
First of four video interviews (recorded during COVID lockdown, UK) with Fred Harrison, Akhil Patel, and Phil Anderson. This episode covers: Fred Harrison’s encounter with Homer Hoyt (Chicago, saw Hoyt flying the Florida coast looking for vacant land to speculate in), the political suppression of land economics from Winston Churchill through WWI, Russia’s failed attempt to implement land value tax under Yeltsin, and the current state of rent-seeking in global finance (“cannibalism” stage where banking is feeding on itself).
Key Claims
- Homer Hoyt met Fred Harrison and gave him autographed copies of his work, but had become a land speculator himself — possibly why he claimed the cycle was “finished.” — confidence: medium
- Winston Churchill advocated land value tax as a Liberal in the early 1900s — this is virtually erased from mainstream Churchill biographies. — confidence: high
- The 1910/1911 People’s Budget collected some land rent — by 1920, Tories had it cancelled and the Treasury repaid already-collected revenue (unique in history). — confidence: high
- Fred Harrison spent 10 years trying to get Russia to implement land value taxation after 1991 — defeated by World Bank, IMF, and Western academic pressure pushing standard privatization. — confidence: high
- Russian oligarchs quickly figured out that privatizing natural resources + bank credit = massive rent extraction. This “new money” flowing into Western banks was key to the 2000-2007 real estate boom. — confidence: high
- Current stage: “cannibalism” — rent-seeking has consumed productive economy, now banking sector feeds on itself. — confidence: medium (Fred’s framing)
- Land value capture is a taboo subject in economics because of vested interests in the “culture that we live in.” — confidence: high
Predictions / Forecasts
None
Notable Quotes
“What we’ve got is from Homer Hoyt’s city-level land cycle in the 18th century… it went global in the second half of the 20th century. It’s now out of control.” “The treasury was obliged to pay back the revenue that had already been collected [from land value tax]. This, as far as I’m aware, is the first time in history that revenue collected by a government is actually been paid back.”