Geophilos: Issue 4, Spring 2002

THE TWO global problems that require urgent attention stem from the failure to elaborate a vision of practical ways for solving disputes arising from how we occupy and use space on earth.

The environment has its world-wide network of activists who appeal for changes in the way that we abuse our natural habitats. Unfortunately, with a minority of notable exceptions, these activists fail to identify a general mechanism that includes the power to drive change in behaviour in the desired direction.

The second problem is the inability to peacefully co-exist with neighbours. This spatial problem manifests itself in seemingly irreconcilable conflicts at all levels:

• the residential community: witness the plight of mothers in Belfast who, taking their children to school, run the gauntlet of harassment from families of a different religious persuasion who live in neighbouring streets;
• the national level: regions that challenge the legitimacy of others to influence their future (such as the Basques in Spain);
• the international level: two countries like Indian and Pakistan cannot agree on the territorial limits of their countries within Kashmir.

When the sovereign nation-state reigned supreme, military power could be used to contain the tensions as peoples of different ethnic origins struggled to control the space they needed for expanding populations and from which to draw the resources to sustain their cultures. That power is now losing its effectiveness.

These two seemingly distinct problems, given their common roots, ought to be tackled as part of a single reform programme. This would accelerate remedial action by mustering the countervailing power that is needed to override the obstacles to rational and fair remedies.

Contents

• Editor's Introduction (Download PDF)
  The Man/Land Nexus
  
  
• Civilisation Sans Discontents (Download PDF)
  Rent & the Sarasvati culture
  Fred Harrison
  
  
• The Neolithic Mind (Download PDF)
  Lessons from the lost symbiosis between mankind and nature
  Timothy Glazier
  
  
• Ancient Wisdom and Modern Theory (Download PDF)
  Archaeological field tests for the Marxist paradigm
  Fred Harrison
  
  
• The Alaska Model of Governance (Download PDF)
  Resource rents for public investment and citizen dividends
  Alanna Hartzok
  
  
• Buying Back Scotland (Download PDF)
  Community buy-outs and the Scottish land funds
  Peter Gibb
  
  
• The Right to Development (Download PDF)
  Third generation of rights and our common heritage
  David Smiley
  
  
• Rental Payments for Aqua Bio-resources (Download PDF)
  Part 2: The history of rental payments in Russia
  Galina Titova
  
  
• Lies of the Land (Download PDF)
  Illusions in US property appraisal methodologies
  Michael Hudson
  
  
• Land Speculation & Banking Crises (Download PDF)
  Joseph M. Casey
  
  
• DEBATE on the Right to Work
  
  
  • How to approach Rent through Rights by L. L. Blake (Download PDF)
    
    
  • Institutionalised Poverty by Tony O'Brien (Download PDF)
    
    
• BOOK REVIEW: Where the penalty for objectivity is death - Euan MacKie (Download PDF)
  
  
• BOOK REVIEW: Begging the Question - Fred Harrison (Download PDF)
  
  
• BOOK REVIEW: Globalisation & the Common Good - Kamran Mofid (Download PDF)