Robert Swann (March 26, 1918 – January 13, 2003) was a community land trust pioneer,

Georgist Georgism, also called in modern times Geoism, and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that, although people should own the value they produce themselves, the economic rent derived from land—including ...

, and peace activist in the United States. He was born in Cleveland Heights, Ohio and died in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. According to his obituary, "Swann dedicated more than a half century of his life to non-violence, desegregation, appropriate technology, affordable housing, land trusts, community credit, worker cooperatives and local currency". Swann was a

conscientious objector A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to object ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and was imprisoned. In 1967, Swann signed a public statement declaring his intention to refuse to pay income taxes in protest against the U.S. war against Vietnam."No Income Tax For War!
archived
at

Horowitz Transaction Publishers Archive Transaction Publishers was a New Jersey-based publishing house that specialized in social science books and journals. It was located on the Livingston Campus of Rutgers University. Transaction was sold to Taylor & Francis in 2016 and merged with ...

Community Land Trusts

In 1969 Swann,

Slater King The Albany Movement was a desegregation and voters' rights coalition formed in Albany, Georgia, in November 1961. This movement was founded by local black leaders and ministers, as well as members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commi ...

, and other civil rights activists founded New Communities, Inc., a 5,600 acre land trust in Lee County, Georgia in order to secure long term community land ownership for landless Southern blacks. In her 2004 Annual E. F. Schumacher Lecture on Swann, Stephanie Mills said: "Bob Swann's innovation and formalization of the community land trust is one of his most important contributions to economic alternatives." She also suggests influences on Swann that led to the creation of the community land trust, such as "research in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

on the

Jewish National Fund Jewish National Fund ( he, קֶרֶן קַיֶּימֶת לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, ''Keren Kayemet LeYisrael'', previously , ''Ha Fund HaLeumi'') was founded in 1901 to buy and develop land in Ottoman Syria (later Mandatory Palestine, and subseq ...

's land trust, certainly

Henry George Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was an American political economist and journalist. His writing was immensely popular in 19th-century America and sparked several reform movements of the Progressive Era. He inspired the eco ...

's thinking about the evil consequences of

land speculation In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable shortly. (It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hopes for a decline in value.) Many s ...

, and

Vinoba Bhave Vinayak Narahari, also known as Vinoba Bhave (; 11 September 1895 – 15 November 1982), was an Indian advocate of nonviolence and human rights. Often called ''Acharya'' (Sanskrit teacher), he is best known for the Bhoodan Movement. He is cons ...

's Bhoodan or land-gift movement; and J. P. Narayan's Gramdan gift movement in India." See also:

New Communities New Communities was a land trust and farm collective owned and operated by approximately a dozen black farm farmers from 1969 to 1985. Once one of the largest-acreage African American-owned properties in the United States, it was situated in Sout ...

and Community Land Trust

Birth of the E. F. Schumacher Society

In the late 1960s, Ralph Borsodi and Swann established the International Independence Institute, which became the Institute for Community Economics (ICE) in the 1970s. Swann discovered the ideas of

E.F. Schumacher Ernst Friedrich Schumacher (16 August 1911 – 4 September 1977) was a German-British statistician and economist who is best known for his proposals for human-scale, decentralised and appropriate technologies.Biography on the inner dustjacket ...

and became the champion of Schumacher's 1974 U.S. book tour for ''

Small Is Beautiful ''Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered'' is a collection of essays published in 1973 by German-born British economist E. F. Schumacher. The title "Small Is Beautiful" came from a principle espoused by Schumach ...

''. In 1980 Swann and Susan Witt, a staff member at ICE and Swann's partner, were asked to move from their offices in Cambridge and establish a regional community land trust in the Berkshires. With interested members of the Berkshire region they incorporated the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires. At the same time in 1980, Swann and Witt were asked by The Schumacher Society in the UK to start an American counterpart. The programs of the E. F. Schumacher Society continue at the

Schumacher Center for New Economics The Schumacher Center for a New Economics (formerly the E. F. Schumacher Society) is a tax exempt nonprofit organization based in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The Schumacher Center promotes the 'new economy', which includes the concepts buy ...

Publications

'The Economics of Peace'' originally published in ''

The Catholic Worker ''Catholic Worker'' is a newspaper published seven times a year by the flagship Catholic Worker community in New York City. The newspaper was started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin to make people aware of church teaching on social justice. Hist ...

''.

'The Community Land Trust: A Guide to the New Model for Land Tenure in America'' with Shimon Gottschalk, Erick Hansch, and Edward Webster. 1972. *''Building Sustainable Communities: Tools and Concepts for Self-Reliant Economic Change'' with C. George Benello and Shann Turnbull, edited by Ward Morehouse (activist), Ward Morehouse. New York City, NY: Bootstrap Press. First Edition 1989, Second Edition 1997.

'Peace, Civil Rights, and the Search for Community: An Autobiography''

External links

online at the

history of the Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swann, Robert American conscientious objectors American tax resisters Community organizations 1918 births 2003 deaths