Mason Gaffney

[Frank de Jong]

I thought the Earthsharing list should know that Mason Gaffney passed away yesterday. He was our most formidable Georgist thinker. He will be missed dearly.

Frank Peddle

===========

Wyn Achenbaum	Fri, Jul 17, 9:23 AM (1 day ago)

I had an email during the night from Mase's son Stuart:

Our wonderful Dad, Mason Gaffney, died peacefully today in Redlands, California. He was surrounded by love. He was a truly remarkable man! ...as you well know. 

This is just a brief note to let you know, as it has been a full, exhausting day. 

Thinking of our dear Dad with love and gratitude,

Stuart

I have a huge collection of his emails, from the various listservs and other Georgist and other conversations, which should be mined for the many gems.

I think I first met Mase when I was about 14, in association with the TRED conferences, held at University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin's conference house, on the campus where Mase and Arthur Becker taught.  I have some of his correspondence with my grandfather, who was roughly a generation older than Mase, and it is such a treat to read.  After Weld's death, he made a point of staying in touch, nudging me toward these ideas.

and just before I sent this off:

Thank you for sending your kind messages and lovely tributes. Clearly we are all missing my father terribly -- and specifically I am missing his proofreading skills -- because in my emotional state last night I had a double "23" on the brain and made a typo in his dates. I can hear my father correcting me over the dinner table, and telling me to let you all know his correct dates are October 18, 1923-July 16, 2020. 

I'm including a short tribute I wrote last night. He was a giant. He is loved, treasured, and missed. 

Stuart

My Dad died peacefully today, surrounded by love. He was a legend, singing us to sleep with arias, passing the time on family hikes by reciting epic poetry by heart, traveling the globe to address world leaders about economics and taxation. He waited until his 96th birthday to tell us about the time he was introduced to Eleanor Roosevelt while she was out walking her dogs. When asked what made the moment memorable, he said "her dogs were extremely large." Who knows what stories he may have had yet to share! He always had time to spare, a song in his heart, and a tale to tell.

A lifelong professor of economics, he only recently retired at age 89, and published books and articles well into his 90s. On his collected essays you can find the quote: "Mason Gaffney is a national treasure."

Here he is just last September in his happy place, the old family home in Vermont, where he is doing what he loved most -- recounting his stories, and a lifetime of memories.

Professor Mason Gaffney, a treasure forever - October 18, 1923-July 16, 2020

  

Mase was a sweet man!

Warmly,

Wyn

With Mason's death on Thursday and the imminent emptying of RSF's book warehouse, this email, sent by Mase in 2009 soon after the CGO conference in Cleveland*, might nudge you to order a copy or two of the book, which exists both in paperback and hardback.   It also has a website, http://afterthecrash-masongaffney.com/ which contains Cliff Cobb's introduction to the book, but does not contain the 3 chapters:

You can read an excerpt at https://www.amazon.com/After-Crash-Designing-Depression-free-Economy/dp/1444333070 using the "surprise me!"

The material also appeared as AJES Vol 68, No. 4 (October, 2009)

Why does RSF have 636 hardback copies at Fitchburg?  Because our board thought every member of Congress, plus some committee staffers, should receive a copy.  The logistics of that, however, became quite daunting, and we were never able work that out.  (Something precipitated by white powder in envelopes, as I recall.)

Wyn

* At that 2009 conference, oral histories were filmed with a number of Georgists.  See https://vimeo.com/schalkenbach, and keep choosing "more."

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Dear Cleveland Conferee:

 

                Mark Sullivan kindly suggested that I alert you to the forthcoming October publication of a new book, After the Crash, to be published by Wiley-Blackwell.  This is the 2009 item in its annual series of books selected by the Editors of AJES.  (It was Larry Moss who worked out this contract.) The bulk of this book is also available in ppb as the October number of the AJES.

 

                This book originated as a gleam in the eye of Larry Moss, Editor of the AJES, before his untimely death last winter.  It was to be a collection of many of my writings, tentatively referred to as “The Best of Mase”.  I was and am deeply touched that Larry thought of it.

 

Then his widow and Assistant Editor, Widdy Ho, working with Ted Gwartney, picked up the ball and ran with it. They engaged the services of Cliff Cobb to serve as Editor, subject to a strict deadline. Cliff and I conferred and decided the world was more interested in The  Crash, and what’s next, than a random collection of my screeds.  Cliff then responded magnificently, quickly stitching together many of my short pieces into a more coherent whole. He added so much of his own research I asked him to be co-author, but he insisted I was the author and he the Editor, and so it will appear.  I am overwhelmed by the support that Larry, Widdy, Ted, and Cliff gave to this enterprise, and grateful for life (or even for eternity, if we should be so lucky).  Along with what they did I am even more grateful for the friendship and good will they all showed in bringing this work to life, not to mention their enterprise, initiative, and expedition. Rarely does a writer see his work slide so quickly down skids so well greased.

 

                They say you should never marry a writer. I won’t go that far, but it does take an unusually supportive spouse to share the sacrifices involved, over many years, and I owe an immense debt to my dear wife Tish. I promised her golf and skiing on our honeymoon in 1973, but what with this, that, and the other, we never got around to it.  3 children did take up a lot of time.

 

                Naturally this book is imbued with the Georgist message, but there is lots more, for better or worse. First there is a Georgist interpretation of boom and bust, along the lines that Phillip Anderson expressed so well at our conference, but with my own added wrinkle which brings in the capital theory that George omitted. 

 

Then there is a new framework for macro-economics in which capital turnover is basic, while monetary and fiscal policies are froth on the waves. This is aimed at the immediate and permanent goals of revving up the supply of commercial loans and working capital to keep the Great Wheel of macroeconomics turning.  The damage of land speculation is seen not just in withholding land from labor, but in abetting the freezing of capital in slow-turning forms.  Larry would have liked, I think, the integration of Georgist and Austrian analyses. Cliff and I hope that this approach will help integrate Georgist economics with what are now “mainstream” views.

 

Last there is a rationale for fractional-reserve banking, but showing how we may civilize it by preventing the use of land value as collateral for loans.

 

                I remain awestruck at how Cliff cobbled all this together in two and a half months; his emails often registered at hours like 3:30 AM.  I hope you will like the results.

 

Mason

...