Event overview
Ed Randall (RUGD, Goldsmiths) will explore the origins of plutocracy and the ways in which plutocrats have not only protected their family fortunes but maintained political influence.
RUGD 2013 AUTUMN SEMINAR SERIES
Research Unit in Governance and Democracy
Ed will explore the origins of plutocracy and the ways in which plutocrats have not only protected their family fortunes but maintained political influence.
In spite of the introduction of universal adult suffrage 'Western liberal democracies' have had limited success in altering the distribution of income, wealth or power. Ed will draw on Georgist insights into the origins and ramifications of the privatisation of economic rents - and land rents in particular - in considering the durability and adaptability of plutocracy and the limitations and brittleness of 'liberal democracies', even when they have been in the hands of elected representatives who have expressed their support for highly egalitarian social and economic goals.
Ed will explain why he believes that a genuinely democratic society can only be established and secured when a majority of the population accepts the need to treat location value as a common wealth. He will outline the case for a legal and fiscal system capable of preventing a small number of rentiers from harvesting the common wealth for their private as opposed to public purposes.
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About the speaker:
Ed studied at Durham University and the London School of Economics - where he completed an MSc (Econ) before qualifying as a nurse at St. Thomas’ Hospital. He was subsequently recruited to teach students taking a joint Social Science and Nursing degree programme, sponsored jointly by the Princess Alexandra School of Nursing and Goldsmiths College and taught at the London Hospital.
Ed became a member of the Department of Politics at Goldsmiths when it was founded in the late 1990s. Apart from teaching and researching in the fields of politics, economics and public policy for over 30 years Ed served as an elected member of a London Borough Council (from 1982 to 1998) and briefly headed the constituency office an MP.
Ed is the author of The European Union and Health Policy (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000), A Union for Health: strengthening the European Union's Role in Health (London: Centre for Reform, 2002), Food, Risk and Politics: Scare, Scandal and Crisis - Insights into the Risk Politics of Food Safety (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009) and joint editor of the Dictionary of Liberal Thought (London: Methuen/Politicos, 2007). His research and opinions have been widely published in a range of publications and academic journals including Policy Studies, The Political Quarterly, Journal of European Public Policy, Social Policy and Administration, the Times Higher Education Supplement and Liberator.
On his retirement from Goldsmiths in August 2012 Ed accepted an invitation from the College to become a Visiting Fellow in Politics. Since his retirement Ed played the leading role in drafting Caroline Lucas’s Private Members Bill, calling for research into Land Value Taxation; he has also been a vociferous critic of Coalition economic policy and the Government’s failure to make intelligent use of the receipts generated by the Bank of England’s Asset Purchase Facility. Ed now spends part of the week as a gateway assessor for Citizens Advice in south east London, has become a member of the Steering Committee of the Coalition for Economic and has accepted an invitation to become Secretary of the Professional Land Reform Group.
Dates & times
Date | Time | Add to calendar |
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4 Dec 2013 | 5:30pm - 7:30pm |
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