Article

Watched in the Wild

The New Republic, August 21, 1971

FOR THE PAST year and a half I’ve been living on an old dairy ranch about fifty miles north of San Francisco. Not long ago, while I was walking with a female friend near my ranch, two armed Rangers stopped to ask who I was and where I was going.

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Beyond Antitrust

The New Republic, July 6,1974

ANTITRUST is a criminologist’s approach to economics: it seeks to punish unwanted behavior.  In addition to that, we need public competitors to giant corporations.

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Lamenting the Rent

The New Republic, April 13, 1974

LIKE SOME 25 MILLION Americans, I pay monthly tribute to an absen­tee landlord for the privilege of having a roof over my head.  A good-sized portion of that is profit for banks, insurance companies, real estate agents and present and past landlords.  Why?

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The Case for a Tax on Wealth

Business and Society Review, Winter 1974

WEALTHY PERSONS in America enjoy secu­rity, privilege, power, and freedom from demeaning chores.  Some of these benefits derive from wealth itself, others from its unequal distribution.  It is the latter that are properly the concern of the non-wealthy.

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Kicking the Auto Habit

The New Republic, December 15, 1973

ANGELENO LIFE is unthinkable without the automobile.  But Washing­ton is talking about 10 or 15 gallons weekly gasoline quotas, Sunday closing of gas­oline stations, and immediate cutbacks of diesel fuel and heavy heating oil.

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TVA After 40 Years

The New Republic, November 10,1973

WHEN THE TENNESSEE Valley Authority was created by Congress in 1933, it was conceived of not only as an effort to revitalize an impoverished region, but also as an experiment in public enterprise.  Forty years later the returns on TVA are pretty much in.

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Socialist Experiment In Canada

The New Republic, October 13, 1973

THREE of the four provinces in western Canada — Man­itoba, Sas­katchewan and British Columbia — are gov­erned by socialist parties.  With the over­throw of Salvador Allende in Chile, these are now the only democratic socialist governments in the Western Hemisphere.

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Review of “The New Populism” by Fred Harris

The New Republic, September 8, 1973

BOOKS BY POLITICIANS tend to be boring, staff-produced efforts designed to dis­play The Boss as a thoughtful public servant.  What sets Fred Harris’ apart is his unique angle of vision.  He is the only major politician who says publicly and indeed vo­ciferously that American capitalism is a shuck.

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Buying Back the Land: A Proposal for California

Working Papers For A New Society, Summer 1973

IT IS JUST within the realm of possibility that low-income groups, by joining with environmental­ists, labor and other progressive forces, could bring about a favorable distribution of land ownership in California.  The mechanism for doing this could be a state government trust fund which might be called the California Land Conserva­tion Fund.

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