Description

Governments are unable to combat the great economic and environmental crises of our age because they are denied access to the financial tools that would solve problems like housing boom/busts, poverty and unemployment. Agencies of the State are crippled by what author Fred Harrison calls a culture of cheating. That culture was incubated by the feudal aristocracy in the 16th century. The nobility of England executed a coup against the monarchical state so that they could control the public purse. Their mission was to pocket the social revenue, the rent of land. Governments, consequently, had to start taxing people's earned incomes. This, in turn, inflicted grievous damage on people's productivity and created the social pathologies of our age. In the first of a trilogy of exposés, the author reveals how the culture of cheating mutated to become the driving force that damages the lives of all of us today. Winston S. Churchill identified the evils that blight our communities as originating in what economists call rent-seeking. The solution is the new kind of financial system which Churchill tried to enshrine in law a century ago. Taking the United Kingdom as his case study, the author examines the financial algorithm that would place societies back on the path to social evolution. No-one need be excluded from a share in the riches that would flow if governments stopped using the taxes that subvert the wealth and health of nations.