Friendship Brunch in the Evening
Jul. 18th, 2021 11:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ndrosenGeorgist conferences traditionally end with a friendship brunch, at which attendees share a final meeting, give public thanks to friends and colleagues, whom they may toast, and also toast the memories of people whom we have lost in the past year. Due to the pandemic, there was no in-person Georgist conference in 2020, and is none this year, but we have had lectures and discussions over Zoom, and did have a sort of friendship brunch this evening, to memorialize four people in particular, who died during the past year: Walter Rybeck, Paul Justus, Harry Pollard, and Fred Foldvary.
I have written before about Walter Rybeck, who lived well into his nineties, having been a soldier during World War Two, a piano accompanist to Coretta Scott, before she became Coretta Scott King, a journalist, assistant director of Senator Paul Douglas’s commission on urban problems, a husband and father, and more. His sons Rick Rybeck presented a slide show and narration, and included the news that his father had been writing another book during the last year of his life. I don’t know how complete it is, or whether there are plans to publish it.
Several people spoke of Paul Justus, who was younger, perhaps around seventy, and said that no one had done more work at CGO conferences and boasted less. I do remember him operating the video camera at conferences, while others did most of the talking.
Harry Pollard was another old, old man, who had been voluble, extroverted, and contrarian. I remember him, but he lived in California, and didn’t always make it to conferences in the East, whereas I went to conferences in California only a couple of times. He was among the fatalities of COVID-19. People talked about his efforts for Georgist education.
Dr. Fred Foldvary, who became a professor of economics, was a libertarian, and may have coined the term Geolibertarian. He also predicted the Great Recession of 2008 more than a decade in advance, in an article published in The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, using his Georgist-Austrian synthesis, and also predicted the major recession of 2026. We will see how accurate that prediction is. He was praised as a polite, soft-spoken man, who could speak to libertarians and conventional economists in their own languages. Dan Sullivan said that there are Geolibertarians, Geosocialists, and whatnot, people with different emphases who share a belief that Henry George had important insights; there was even Winston Churchill, the Geoimperialist, who favored land value taxation in Great Britain, and presumably in other countries, while being in favor of British imperialism.
Having poured myself a small glass of Leffe Blonde, I joined in toasting the memory of each of these departed friends. At the end, Wyn Achenbaum called on me to give the toast I have given multiple times at Georgist conferences, the dedication to Progress and Poverty. I wasn’t entirely prepared, and may not have quoted it word for word, but was able to come reasonably close: “To those who, seeing the vice and misery that spring from the present unequal distribution of wealth and privilege, feel the possibility of a higher social state, and would strive for its attainment.”
I have written before about Walter Rybeck, who lived well into his nineties, having been a soldier during World War Two, a piano accompanist to Coretta Scott, before she became Coretta Scott King, a journalist, assistant director of Senator Paul Douglas’s commission on urban problems, a husband and father, and more. His sons Rick Rybeck presented a slide show and narration, and included the news that his father had been writing another book during the last year of his life. I don’t know how complete it is, or whether there are plans to publish it.
Several people spoke of Paul Justus, who was younger, perhaps around seventy, and said that no one had done more work at CGO conferences and boasted less. I do remember him operating the video camera at conferences, while others did most of the talking.
Harry Pollard was another old, old man, who had been voluble, extroverted, and contrarian. I remember him, but he lived in California, and didn’t always make it to conferences in the East, whereas I went to conferences in California only a couple of times. He was among the fatalities of COVID-19. People talked about his efforts for Georgist education.
Dr. Fred Foldvary, who became a professor of economics, was a libertarian, and may have coined the term Geolibertarian. He also predicted the Great Recession of 2008 more than a decade in advance, in an article published in The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, using his Georgist-Austrian synthesis, and also predicted the major recession of 2026. We will see how accurate that prediction is. He was praised as a polite, soft-spoken man, who could speak to libertarians and conventional economists in their own languages. Dan Sullivan said that there are Geolibertarians, Geosocialists, and whatnot, people with different emphases who share a belief that Henry George had important insights; there was even Winston Churchill, the Geoimperialist, who favored land value taxation in Great Britain, and presumably in other countries, while being in favor of British imperialism.
Having poured myself a small glass of Leffe Blonde, I joined in toasting the memory of each of these departed friends. At the end, Wyn Achenbaum called on me to give the toast I have given multiple times at Georgist conferences, the dedication to Progress and Poverty. I wasn’t entirely prepared, and may not have quoted it word for word, but was able to come reasonably close: “To those who, seeing the vice and misery that spring from the present unequal distribution of wealth and privilege, feel the possibility of a higher social state, and would strive for its attainment.”
