Ronald Banks

Overview

Ronald Banks was a British Georgist writer and analyst best known as editor of Costing the Earth (Shepheard-Walwyn, 1989), a study attempting to value the land and natural resources of Britain — described by its publisher as the first such comprehensive assessment since the Domesday Book.[1] Beyond editing the volume he contributed its Chapter 2, "Terra Incognita" (the opening chapter, "Ecology, Politics and the Nature of Rent," is by Fred Harrison).[1] Banks remained an active figure in UK land-reform circles for decades: he served as Chair of Trustees of the Land Research Trust, under whose imprint he authored a series of policy papers around 2015–2016 (e.g. "Would Exiting the EU be Disastrous for Britain?", "Debt and the Fiscal Crisis: the Rentenmark lesson," and "Transforming the Nation's Finances").[3] Fred Harrison, in the preface to Boom Bust (2005), acknowledges Banks and credits him with calculating the estimate that shifting UK public revenue from conventional taxes onto land rent could unlock roughly £880 billion in additional national output (around £15,000 per person).[2] Banks's birth and death dates could not be verified in this research pass — no obituary or biographical record with dates was located; his active-career span (1989 Costing the Earth through ~2016 Land Research Trust papers) is documented, but exact dates remain unverified.

Costing the Earth (1989)

Costing the Earth, edited by Banks, argued that a wide range of economic and environmental problems — from urban decay to resource depletion — trace back to the mispricing of land and natural resources, and presented an attempt to place a systematic value on Britain's land and natural-resource base.[1] The book sits within the same UK Georgist tradition as Fred Harrison's work and the broader case that conventional taxation obscures a large pool of collectible economic rent.

The £880bn Estimate

Harrison cites Banks's calculation alongside Tideman and Plassmann's independent estimate of roughly $7 trillion in deadweight losses from conventional taxation across the G7, using both figures to argue that the deadweight loss of taxing labour and capital instead of land rent is large enough to be a first-order policy question rather than a marginal efficiency footnote.[2] This estimate is one data point in the broader Georgist argument that land rent could fund a substantial share of public revenue; as with any such macro-level fiscal estimate, the specific methodology and assumptions behind Banks's £880bn figure have not been independently verified for this page. The primary calculation or publication in which Banks derives the £880bn figure was not located this pass, so the methodology cannot be independently checked here.

See Also

• Boom Bust (book) — the discovery source, where Harrison credits Banks's estimate
• Fred Harrison — UK Georgist economist and author of Boom Bust
• Deadweight Loss — the concept the £880bn estimate is meant to quantify
• Land Rent Could Fund Government — the broader outcome claim this estimate supports

Sources

1. Ronald Banks, ed. (1989), Costing the Earth, Shepheard-Walwyn — used for the book's authorship, publisher, general argument, and the chapter breakdown (Banks's own Ch. 2 "Terra Incognita"; Fred Harrison's Ch. 1). Full table of contents and text hosted at Cooperative Individualism / School of Cooperative Individualism; publisher page at Shepheard-Walwyn. Google Books
2. Fred Harrison (2005), Boom Bust: House Prices, Banking and the Depression of 2010, Preface and Ch. 14 §2 — used for Banks's acknowledgement in the preface and the £880bn UK output estimate (discovery source; book summary on wiki). Book page
3. Land Research Trust policy-paper series (2015–2016), bylined "Ronald Banks, Chair of Trustees, Land Research Trust" — e.g. "Would Exiting the EU be Disastrous for Britain?" (No. 1), "Debt and the Fiscal Crisis: the Rentenmark lesson" (No. 2), "Transforming the Nation's Finances: the Plan for Implementation" (No. 3). Used only for the verifiable biographical fact that Banks chaired the Land Research Trust and was publishing on land/tax policy into the mid-2010s. landresearchtrust.org — does not supply birth/death dates.