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Nonfiction book recommendation: "Progress & Poverty" by Henry George

I think George's arguments about land & natural resources have a lot of relevance for what you discussed in The Space episode this week -- orbital real estate, as well as the surface of Mars and the Moon fitting very well in with George's definition of "economic land" -- natural phenomena no human being can create, but which is a necessary input into production. America already treats electromagnetic spectrum in this manner -- you can't create new frequencies and it's a fundamentally rival good (if you use it, I can't), so rather than let someone just plant their flag on it and own it forever, we hold periodic spectrum auctions, similar to the "land value tax" George proposes for all forms of economic land, which is designed to eliminate the distortions caused by land speculators. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty which "establishes that space shall be free for exploration and use by all nations, but that no nation may claim sovereignty of outer space or any celestial body" expresses a fundamentally Georgist notion -- space belongs to no one but the whole of the human race.

George's basic idea is that people should be entitled to the fruits of their LABOR, and a return on their invested CAPITAL, but nobody should be able to extract value out of others just because they hold the land, which should be the equal inheritance of all humankind.

book on bookshop:

https://bookshop.org/books/progress-and-poverty-9781544631172/9781544631172

audiobook on audible:

https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/progress-and-poverty/273401

for a condensed version, I wrote a book review:

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty

and that book review is also available in audio form:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty/id1295289140?i=1000517489173

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Wow great job on the Facebook episode guys! Love hearing the elitist PMC types tell you how literally everything I believe regarding COVID, vaccines, election and Jan 6 was fake misinformation!

I must say they really convinced me with their condescension.

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"The Heart of Everything That Is" is an amazing non-fiction book about Chief Redcloud and offers a brief snapshot of the atrocities committed by both sides in the wars waged against the Native Americans in the West. Amazing book, can't recommend enough.

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