The next Council of Georgist Organizations Conference will take place August 15-19, 2016 at the Wyndham Lake Buena Vista Resort in Orlando, Florida.

Theme: In Land We Trust

This year’s conference will feature an examination of the pitfalls and potential of land trusts and other planned communities, including Disney World and Celebration Village, with a look at how such trusts have changed surrounding communities for better and for worse, with Georgist and outside speakers. We will visit Osceola County Historical Society and its Pioneer Village which will show Florida’s Agricultural heritage, and we will give ourselves a sense of “life before Disney.”

A Tribute to Mason Gaffney

The Robert Schalkenbach foundation is launching a new book at the conference. Rent Unmasked: How to Save the Global Economy and Build a Sustainable Future; Conflict Resolution and Ethical Economics.

It is an analysis of Mason Gaffney’s contributions to land economics by twelve prominent economists and land experts. Mason and several authors plan to attend, including Fred Foldvary, Francis Peddle, Fred Harrison, Ted Gwartney and Polly Cleveland. Polly will also be our banquet speaker.

The Annotated Works of Henry George

RSF is also launching The Annotated Works of Henry George; Volume One. Volume one includes an introduction to the six-volume series that focuses on the social context for George’s political economy, as well as the public and private struggles that George faced. Tension between the dream of economic justice and different techniques to realize it proved a continuing challenge for the Georgist movement after its heady early years.

Volume 1 presents three major works by George and new essays to provide context. George wrote Our Land and Land Policy (1871) while still a journalist in California. Fred Foldvary shows that George, even as a neophyte economist, wrote with uncanny insight and analytical skill. In The Irish Land Question (1881), George dove into the maelstrom of Irish land policy. Jerome Heavey provides the essential clarification of the history and politics of Irish land law and explains why George’s remedy was not adopted. Property in Land (1885) incorporates the debate between George and the eighth Duke of Argyll. Brian Hodgkinson provides the historical and philosophical setting for this exchange between the Scottish aristocratic landowner and the American “Prophet of San Francisco.”

Other Topics

Other topics include, On Free Trade with Lindy Davies, Did Protectionism Help Cause the Civil War: an analysis of suppressed history with Dan Sullivan, Bill Batt on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, and a regional coordinator for the Citizen’s Climate Lobby on how they are effectively campaigning for a carbon tax coupled with a citizens dividend.

Logistics

The conference begins on the evening of Monday August 15 and ends with a farewell breakfast on Saturday, August 20, at the Wyndham Lake Buena Vista Resort at Disney World. The book launch sessions will be held on Tuesday, August 16 from 2:00 to 5:00 PM.

For further information contact Sue or Scott Walton, [email protected].