Jeffery J. Smith | Progress.org

JEFFERY J. SMITH published The Geonomist, which won a California GreenLight Award, has appeared in both the popular press (e.g.,TruthOut) and academic journals (e.g., USC's “Planning and Markets”), been interviewed on radio and TV, lobbied officials, testified before the Russian Duma, conducted research (e.g., for Portland's mass transit agency), and recruited activists and academics to Progress.org. A member of the International Society for Ecological Economics and of Mensa, he lives amidst the beauty of Northern California. Jeffery is currently Chief Editor at Progress.org.

Articles by

Jeff

Curious About Earth’s Worth? Pay Up!

One way to keep the curious ignorant is to raise the price for knowledge—until demand overwhelms gatekeepers.

Jeffery J. Smith

Critics Want Other Stats: Why Not Rents?

There are successful groups using stats, churning out stats, and demanding better official stats. May their voices join ours.

Jeffery J. Smith

Defend the Alamo, Damn the Torpedoes, Mix the Metaphors

The quest to know the worth of Earth takes a rocky road with detours but we’re on it for the long haul.

Jeffery J. Smith

At This Tipping Point, Can We Back Off?

People have bigger problems than measuring the “rents”. Or do they?

Jeffery J. Smith

Unfinished Business

Until somebody measures the worth of Earth, many other issues must remain unresolved.

Jeffery J. Smith

When all your original strategies don’t pan out, better stop and take stock, figure out what went wrong and if anything can go right.

Jeffery J. Smith

All Creek, No Paddle

Is this the end of the line? Are there no more strategies for learning the worth of Earth? Has every stone been turned over?

Jeffery J. Smith

In the Belly of the Fed

Their silence and protestations of ignorance aside, logically, the Federal Reserve must know the value of US land.

Jeffery J. Smith

Ruffling More Than Feathers

You think those seeking change might climb abord the quest to know Earth's worth?

Jeffery J. Smith

No Trespassing on Fields of Knowledge

Whether enclosing pastures or fields of knowledges, the legal enablers—patents and copyrights—generate fortunes, undue or not.

Jeffery J. Smith

Utilities Monopolize Land

The prices you pay go up whenever monopolies get their way. Will prices still rise if technology does in monopolies?

Jeffery J. Smith

Removing Damages

Once we heal Earth, we not only heal ourselves but also enrich whoever ends up with the fatter rents for healed land.

Jeffery J. Smith

What’s the Cost of America?

If there are reasons to be encouraged, to not foolishly feel hope, then you have to know them.

Jeffery J. Smith

With the Help of Leaders

We have elected politicians to serve us. Here's chance to ask them to do their job in a very big way.

Jeffery J. Smith

When to Preserve? When to Develop?

Powerful people with limited values tell us losing pristine nature is good for us. How can we tell when it’s not?

Jeffery J. Smith

When Less Is Less

When public servants quit serving, to whom do you turn? Somebody out there must be the true answer man, eh?

Jeffery J. Smith

Make Prices Reward “Green” Choices

Target the most sensitive body part—the wallet. Make prices tell the truth. Earth as object of speculation? Not with geonomics.

Jeffery J. Smith

Up to My Own Best Guess

You can hear how much Earth is worth from somebody afraid of the answer or from one who's determined to tell the truth.

Jeffery J. Smith

City Density—Friend of Trip Efficiency

Cities cater to cars, not people. New fuels, motors, and modes of transport all pale beside fewer, shorter trips.

Jeffery J. Smith

Buildings Waste Energy. But We Tax’em!

You want efficient buildings yet you tax them—improving them raises their tax liability. How rational is that? Not very. So do something else!

Jeffery J. Smith

Officials Guesstimate the Price of Non-Housed Lots

The US owns about 1/3 of America and from it raises revenue—enough for all Americans?

Jeffery J. Smith

At the Official Data Watering Holes

People tend to think an official stat is the answer. But is it? Is it accurate? Tainted by politics? Is the unofficial better?

Jeffery J. Smith

As Done by Academics

How much do we spend on nature? On land under our homes, on the farmland portion of our food, on the oil portion of our gasoline? Not even the pros are sure.

Jeffery J. Smith

Activism Goes Easier With Volunteers

Helping shift the paradigm, it happens faster—and feels good.

Jeffery J. Smith

Gets an A for Apolitical?

You want your information straight up, not massaged by the messengers POV.

Jeffery J. Smith

Diving Into Edited Data

Cutting-edge bloggers in recent years have published what they discoverd about how much we pay for Earth.

Jeffery J. Smith

Arousing Powerful Resistance

Tallying Earth's worth is not simple addition. It's also strong opposition to subtle powers that be.

Jeffery J. Smith

Rising to the Challenge

Goethe: The moment you commit, then Providence moves too... Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

Jeffery J. Smith

A guide can make your tour of unfamiliar terrain, a fresh field of knowledge, yield deep insights more quickly.

Jeffery J. Smith

A Calculation Equal to the Calendar?

The size of rent is enough to make you bowl over.

Jeffery J. Smith

What Discerning Savers Want to Know

Geonomists must keep in the mix and stay part of the conversation about new policies needed to make a better world.

Jeffery J. Smith

Why Can’t Officials be Bothered?

Since officials refuse to tally up what the public has a right to know, maybe they have a good reason for sitting this one out.

Jeffery J. Smith

It Takes a Critical Mass to Answer the Call

A critical mass is created only when called into action by an advance scout alerted to an opportunity to make progress.

Jeffery J. Smith

Keys to a Better World

This single datum, if widely known, could transform economies into the least problematic feature of society.

Jeffery J. Smith

Myths Exist to be Debunked

Anything worth hiding by the few must also be worth knowing by the many.

Jeffery J. Smith

Present Trends Demand a Counting

Contradictions in American society increase the discomfort, leading to a tipping point; so many will want to know the worth of Earth, officials will have to add it up.

Jeffery J. Smith

Where’s a Good Conspiracy Theory When You Need One?

The best way to hide a treasure is to not let anyone know it exists.

Jeffery J. Smith

Knowledge is Power, You’d Think

Knowledge is always power, isn't it? The power to make life better for one and all. You'd think.

Jeffery J. Smith

The Data Vacuum

When data that is supposed to be public knowledge is not, it's good to know why. Official incompetence? Unawareness of relevance? What?

Jeffery J. Smith

Is Trillion the New Billion?

The worth of Earth is not just another pretty number. It's proof that nature and markets love us.

Jeffery J. Smith

A Biopsy on an Economy

It's not just that economies cannot help but create a surplus. It's also that that abundance creates a lack—if not properly treated.

Jeffery J. Smith

The Powerful Opponents to Geonomics Throughout History

If ever you are to win, you have to know whom you're up against—and what their Achilles’ Heel may be.

Jeffery J. Smith

Learned Libertarians Lean Toward Land Rents

Progressives alone won't win. It'll take an alliance with their erstwhile opponents, the libertarians, to win the most basic of all reforms—an income apart from our labor.

Jeffery J. Smith

The Blindspot that has Plagued Humanity for Eons

One reason you don't know what to do is that your brain won't let you see the right choice for everyone.

Jeffery J. Smith

Favors for a Group or Dividends for All?

To date, government has endowed landowners with very lucrative favors. What if we extended such largesse to everyone?

Jeffery J. Smith

Why People Are Unemployed

Jobs are plentiful where land is, too. That is, where land and locations are affordable.

Jeffery J. Smith

Academics Against Academic Jargon

It's not just that you're kept from knowing what they know. It's also that bad writers means bad thinkers.

Jeffery J. Smith

Justice—Coming to a Nation Near You

Do tell me about a problem I can fix, and that is—before all heck breaks loose—how to hurry up social progress.

Jeffery J. Smith

Who Owns Your Nation?

“Those who own the country ought to govern it.” First Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, John Jay. So, do you own your country? Enough of it to govern it? Or does someone else?

Jeffery J. Smith

Curbing Climate Change Justly

The knee-jerk ideas won't suffice. Big problems need big solutions—powerful, big-picture solutions. Like geonomics.

Jeffery J. Smith

Economic Indicators Point You Away From What Matters

If you use official statistics to argue your case or guide your investments, you do know better data exist elsewhere, right?

Jeffery J. Smith

Are Pessimists Right? Or is Optimism Warranted?

The human brain easily sees problems but is not hardwired to instantly recognize solutions. One must think, not just react. Can we pull it off?

Jeffery J. Smith

Nature’s Droughts Reined in by Natural Law

People worsen droughts, yet we could avoid them and keep the food coming from dry regions sustainably.

Jeffery J. Smith

History is Just Another Word for Land Speculation

It's always good to know your roots, to know what you're up against, to know what to keep and what to change.

Jeffery J. Smith

Inflation: Prices Up, Our Equilibrium Down

Inflation makes people feel passive, as if the economy were beyond humanity's power of correction, so why bother making it work right for everyone?

Jeffery J. Smith

The Rules of Reality: How Societies Change

The stakes are high. When would-be agents of change ignore what works, they can’t get it readily adopted. And the world misses out on its own salvation.

Jeffery J. Smith

Jeffery J. Smith’s Law of Prime Rent

There are some economists who put Ricardo’s Law to good use. Yet that bedrock of economic analysis is almost 200 years old. It’s due for a checkup and an overhaul.

Jeffery J. Smith

Trickle Up? Trickle Down? Or Should Surplus Trickle Out?

By redistribution, do you still mean the usual “from haves to have nots”? Or can you see predistribution by now?

Jeffery J. Smith

The Shape of Rent

More than an intellectual curiosity, the flow of value from desired locations is an untapped resource, able to alter our lives for the radically better.

Jeffery J. Smith

Downtowns: the Interior Frontier

Wasting land worsens dependency on cars, those everyday polluters and congesters. If urban living is to get as good as it can get, cities need to geonomize.

Jeffery J. Smith

Why are We Still Serfs?

By misunderstanding ownership of land and resources, we make life on earth much harder than it should be.

Jeffery J. Smith

How to Outlive Your Mortgage In a Hip City

If you can't afford to live in San Francisco or even Philadelphia, here's a way to make it possible.

Jeffery J. Smith

MIT Seeks Geonomic Solutions to Climate Change

If MIT wakes up to the power of geonomics—of efficient land use from reform of public revenue flow—this phenomenal reform for good will win a new legion.

Jeffery J. Smith

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Final Words of Advice

“I am now convinced that the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jeffery J. Smith

William F Buckley Jr on the Land Value Tax

In his day, he was the biggest name in conservative debate.

Jeffery J. Smith