The Ten Commandments of Geoism, by Fred Foldvary, Ph.D.

The Ten Commandments of Geoism

It is the implementation of justice in the familiar form of the Ten Commandments.

October 25, 2015

Fred Foldvary, Ph.D.

Economist

Thou shalt not impose a prohibition or cost on any peaceful and honest human action.
Action is peaceful when it does not coercively harm others, when it does not initiate force, and when a contract is among knowing and willing persons. Action is honest when there is no fraud. Therefore there shall be no tax on any transaction, nor on the possession of produced wealth, and there shall be true free trade.
Thou shalt not commit murder, theft, kidnaping, or trespass.
Respect the property rights of others.
Thou shalt pay compensation for any environmental destruction.
Thou shalt distribute the natural land rent to all persons in equal shares when possible, otherwise distribute the rent to the members of the relevant community.
Thou shalt distribute the site rentals generated by population and commerce in equal shares to the members of the communities that generate them.
Thou shalt pay the rentals generated by civic works and services to the agent that generates them, whether in the governmental or the private sectors.
Thou mayest use land rents and rentals for revenue by the governance when the people agree.
Thou shalt not be cruel to animals.
Thou shalt not inflict as punishment any cruelty nor bodily damage.
Ye shall place the spirit of these commandments in the constitutions of your governments.

FRED E. FOLDVARY, Ph.D., (May 11, 1946 — June 5, 2021) was an economist who wrote weekly editorials for Progress.org since 1997. Foldvary’s commentaries are well respected for their currency, sound logic, wit, and consistent devotion to human freedom. He received his B.A. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University. He taught economics at Virginia Tech, John F. Kennedy University, Santa Clara University, and San Jose State University.

Foldvary is the author of The Soul of Liberty, Public Goods and Private Communities, and Dictionary of Free Market Economics. He edited and contributed to Beyond Neoclassical Economics and, with Dan Klein, The Half-Life of Policy Rationales. Foldvary’s areas of research included public finance, governance, ethical philosophy, and land economics.

Foldvary is notably known for going on record in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology in 1997 to predict the exact timing of the 2008 economic depression—eleven years before the event occurred. He was able to do so due to his extensive knowledge of the real-estate cycle.