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| Format | Quarterly magazine |
|---|---|
| Owner | Henry George Foundation of Great Britain |
| Editor | Joseph Milne |
| Founded | June 1894 (asThe Single Tax) |
| Headquarters | 212 Piccadilly London W1J 9HG England |
| Price | £2.50 €3.00 DKK25.00 USD$5.00 A$5.50 |
| ISSN | 0023-7574 |
| Website | LandandLiberty.net |
Land&Liberty is a quarterlymagazine of popular political economics: its focus is the relationship between land and natural resource rights and 21st century economic policy. Published in the UK it covers international affairs and events from a global perspective.
The magazine contains major features, editorial and comment, news and reports, reviews, interviews and readers' letters.
Land&Liberty has no political alignment in the conventional sense. However the magazine is not editorially neutral on issues.Land&Liberty's key concern is how the global common wealth should be used, and it aims to demonstrate that this question is key to effective and just public policy—to the sustainable bridging of private life, the public sector and common resources.[1]Land&Liberty's focus therefore is radical justice in property rights and taxation.
Land&Liberty forecast the 2008 global crisis and housing crash. In the middle of the economic optimism of 2004, it wrote: "There’s trouble ahead. A housing crash is coming."[2] Its 'Crash' cover story issue was published in the first week of September 2007, just days before theevents at Northern Rock that caught the economic establishment unawares.[3]
Since the 1980sLand&Liberty has been an influence on the political opposition within Zimbabwe.[4] In August 2008, theMovement for Democratic Change presented their political programme for thecoalition government that they had entered into with theZimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party. It included a policy for raising public revenue from atax on land values, as advocated byLand&Liberty: "the MDC will through an Act of Parliament establish a Land Commission whose mandate is to…[i]ntroduce an equitable Land Tax".[5] The party's Policy Coordinator General,Eddie Cross, wrote in a 2009 article inLand&Liberty that his party's new policies would help ensure that "secure communities will become free communities with the capacity to confront and control those in charge of the state".[6]
Land&Liberty is the world's longest-running periodical advocating the social reform advanced byHenry George[7]—of whomAlbert Einstein once said: "one cannot imagine a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form and fervent love of justice".[8]
Land&Liberty was launched in June 1894 under the titleThe Single Tax, published as "The Organ of the Scottish Land Restoration Union".[9] Perhaps foreseeingGeorge Bernard Shaw’s later remark, in 1928, that "the Single Taxers are not wrong in principle; but they are behind the times",[10] the periodical changed its title in 1902 toLand Values and subsequently in 1919 toLand&Liberty.[11]
The periodical was initially the campaigning voice of the Scottish Land Restoration Union.[12] The Union and its antecedents were a contemporary political force in Scotland, launching the career ofKeir Hardie,[13] the first socialist elected to the UK Parliament, who went on to become theLabour Party's first leader. Inspired by Henry George, the Union's activism helped deliver—through its publicationThe Single Tax: "an American impulse behind the Scottish labor movement, which became historic in making the modern Labour party, and in forging the character of twentieth-century Britain."[14] Yet within its first year—recording historic shudders in the evolution of British socialism and the birth of the Labour party—the magazine was writing: "what have the Labour Party to offer us? Anything or everything but the single tax.".[15]
Early contributions to the magazine included original writing byHenry George[16] (including first publishings of private material[17]),Arthur Withy,[18]Louis F Post[19] andLeo Tolstoy[20] (again including first publishings of private material[21]).
The magazine published its correspondence from around the world, such as from New Zealand'sPatrick O'Regan,[22] and enjoyed secondary publishing rights from writers and thinkers such asMark Twain[23] andHerbert Spencer.[24]
Through the yearsLand&Liberty has reported on and contributed to the debate on major world events. It has provided analyses of, among other things, the 'Irish Problem', the Scottish crofting movement and the Highland Clearances, the genesis of two World Wars, the creation of the United Nations and the other global institutions, the formulation of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Europe's withdrawal from empire's colonial project, and the middle east conflict.
The paper reported extensively the events surrounding the 1909 UKPeople's Budget, and the resultantHouse of Lords reform—contributing a major voice in the contemporary public debate. The paper's reporters recorded a unique archive of speeches by Lloyd George,[25] Churchill,[26] Asquith[27] and Campbell-Bannerman[28] among others, as they toured the country in support of their cause.
Recent contributors toLand&Liberty include former Danish MP and MEP Ib Christensen,[29]Fred Harrison,[30]Mason Gaffney,[31]Michael Hudson,[32] the English High Court Judge Sir Kenneth Jupp,[33]James Robertson[34] and (now former)Friends of the Earth director Charles Secrett.[35] Public figures interviewed inLand&Liberty in recent years includeJohn Bird,[36]Bob Kiley,[37]Alastair McIntosh,[38]George Monbiot[39] andSteve Norris.[40]Land&Liberty's original output is periodically taken up by the publishing mainstream.[41]
Land&Liberty is published by theHenry George Foundation of Great Britain,[42] an independent economic and social justicethink tank and public education group. The Foundation and its immediate organisational predecessors have been proprietors since 1907, before which the magazine was owned by Scottish land reform groups.
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