LVTFan's Blog

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 22 -- Hal Caine

"The Lord's Prayer says, Give us this day our daily bread. Our daily bread comes from the land. No man made the land. It is God's gift to mankind. It belongs to all men. Therefore individual ownership of land is wrong. Individual control of the fruits of the land is wrong."

— Hall Caine, "David Rossi," in "The Eternal City."

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 8 -- Allen

The only point where I do not find myself in complete accord (and that is perhaps more due to your comparative silence than anything else) is that I attach relatively more importance to the initial injustice done by the permitted monopoly of raw material in a few hands. It seems to me that individualism, in order to be just, must strive hard for an equalisation of original conditions by the removal of all artificial advantages. The great reservoir of natural wealth that we sum up as land (including mines, etc.) ought, it seems to me, to be nationalised before we can say that the individual is allowed fair play. While he is thwarted in obtaining his fair share of the raw material, he is being put at a disadvantage by artificial laws.

—Grant Allen, Letter to Herbert Spencer, 1886, in "Grant Allen, A Memoir," by Edward Clodd.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 2 -- Shakespeare

Duke of Suffolk (reading petition): What's here? "Against the Duke of Suffolk for enclosing the commons of Hebford." How now, sir knave?
Petitioner: Alas, sir, I am but a poor petitioner of our whole township.

—Shakspere, Henry VI., Second Part, Act 1, Scene 3.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 1 -- Hildebrand - Pope Gregory the Great

The soil was given to rich and poor in common. Wherefore, O ye rich, do you unjustly claim it for yourselves alone?

—Hildebrand, Pope Gregory the Great.

(See also March 11)

Hmmm.  Googling this, it appears to be from St. Ambrose.  (See December 21 for another):

Upton Sinclair, ed. (1878–1968). The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest.  1915.

The Voice of the Early Church. V.

By St. Ambrose

(Latin; 340?–397)

HOW far, O rich, do you extend your senseless avarice? Do you intend to be the sole inhabitants of the earth? Why do you drive out the fellow sharers of nature, and claim it all for yourselves? The earth was made for all, rich and poor, in common. Why do you rich claim it as your exclusive right? The soil was given to the rich and poor in common—wherefore, oh, ye rich, do you unjustly claim it for yourselves alone? Nature gave all things in common for the use of all; usurpation created private rights. Property hath no rights. The earth is the Lord’s, and we are his offspring. The pagans hold earth as property. They do blaspheme God.

 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: December 30 -- Dove

If, then, successive generations of men cannot have their fractional share of the actual soil (including mines, etc.) how can the division of the advantages of the natural earth be effected? By the division of its annual value or rent; that is, by making the rent of the soil the common property of the nation. That is (as the taxation is the common property of the State), by taking the whole of the taxes out of the rents of the soil, and thereby abolishing all other kinds of taxation whatever. And thus all industry would be absolutely emancipated from every burden.

— PATRICK EDWARD DOVE, Theory of Human Progression (1850), Chap. III., Sec. 3.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: December 24 -- Sue

"Yes, ah yes, there is frightful misery in the world," answered Gabriel tenderly and sadly.  "Yes, many of the poor, cut off from all joy, all hope, are cold and hungry and in want of shelter and raiment, in the midst of the immense riches which the Creator has provided, not for the happiness of a few, but for the happiness of all, for his wish was that they should be equitably divided — but a few have acquired the common inheritance by fraud and violence."

— EUGENE SUE, The Wandering Jew, Part XVI., Chap. 34.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: December 21 -- St. Ambrose and Dr. McGlynn

God has ordered all things to be produced, so that there should be food in common to all, and that the earth should be a common possession to all. Nature therefore has produced a common right for all, but greed has made it a right for a few.

— ST. AMBROSE, On the Duties of the Clergy (A. D. 391), Chap. XXVIII., Sec. 132. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. X., p. 23.

The Creator has made ample provision for all men in the storehouse of nature and in the faculties and powers of man. To do God's will, we must make room at the Father's table for all His children.

— FATHER EDWARD McGLYNN, Lecture on the Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: December 20 -- Blackstone

The ground was in common and no part of it was the permanent property of any man in particular; yet whoever was in occupation of any determined spot of it, for rest, for shade or the like, acquired for the time a sort of ownership, from which it would have been unjust and contrary to the law of nature to have driven him by force; but the instant that he quitted the use or occupation of it another might seize it without injustice.

— SIR WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, Commentaries, Book II., Chap. I, p. 3.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: December 18 -- Voltaire

Society is in general the owner of the territory of a country, the source of national wealth.

— VOLTAIRE, Dictionnaire Philosophique, tit. Droit Canonique, Sec. 2. Oeuvres, Vol. LIV., p. 138.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 28 -- Morris and Ruskin

He may, and often he does, engross the first necessity of labor, land, and neither use it himself or allow anyone else to use it, and though it is clear that . . . he is injuring the community, the law is sternly on his side.

— WILLIAM MORRIS, Signs of Change, p. 194.

Land should be given to those who can use it.

— JOHN RUSKIN, Fors Clavigera, Part II., Letter ii, p. 96.

The Earth-for-All Calendar -- addendum: St. Ambrose and Pope Paul VI

A sig-file on a listserv brought to my attention a quote from St. Ambrose, which, to my surprise, Ernest Crosby didn't include in his Earth-for-All Calendar:

"You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich."

 

A bit of research led me to a number of mentions of this passage, including Pope Paul VI's 1967 encyclical, Populorum Progressio, which sets it in this context:

Issues and Principles

22. In the very first pages of Scripture we read these words: "Fill the earth and subdue it."(19) This teaches us that the whole of creation is for man, that he has been charged to give it meaning by his intelligent activity, to complete and perfect it by his own efforts and to his own advantage.

Now if the earth truly was created to provide man with the necessities of life and the tools for his own progress, it follows that every man has the right to glean what he needs from the earth. The recent Council reiterated this truth: "God intended the earth and everything in it for the use of all human beings and peoples. Thus, under the leadership of justice and in the company of charity, created goods should flow fairly to all." (20)

All other rights, whatever they may be, including the rights of property and free trade, are to be subordinated to this principle. They should in no way hinder it; in fact, they should actively facilitate its implementation. Redirecting these rights back to their original purpose must be regarded as an important and urgent social duty.

The Use of Private Property

23. "He who has the goods of this world and sees his brother in need and closes his heart to him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (21) Everyone knows that the Fathers of the Church laid down the duty of the rich toward the poor in no uncertain terms. As St. Ambrose put it: "You are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his. You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich." (22) These words indicate that the right to private property is not absolute and unconditional.

No one may appropriate surplus goods solely for his own private use when others lack the bare necessities of life. In short, "as the Fathers of the Church and other eminent theologians tell us, the right of private property may never be exercised to the detriment of the common good." When "private gain and basic community needs conflict with one another," it is for the public authorities "to seek a solution to these questions, with the active involvement of individual citizens and social groups." (23)

The Common Good

24. If certain landed estates impede the general prosperity because they are extensive, unused or poorly used, or because they bring hardship to peoples or are detrimental to the interests of the country, the common good sometimes demands their expropriation.

Vatican II affirms this emphatically. (24) At the same time it clearly teaches that income thus derived is not for man's capricious use, and that the exclusive pursuit of personal gain is prohibited. Consequently, it is not permissible for citizens who have garnered sizeable income from the resources and activities of their own nation to deposit a large portion of their income in foreign countries for the sake of their own private gain alone, taking no account of their country's interests; in doing this, they clearly wrong their country. (25)

 

(19) Gn 1. 28.

(20) Church in the World of Today, no. 69: AAS 58 (1966), 1090 [cf. TPS XI, 306].

(21) 1 Jn 3. 17.

(22) De Nabute, c. 12, n. 53: PL 14. 747; cf. J. R. Palanque, Saint Ambroise et l'empire romain,Paris: de Boccard (1933), 336 ff.

(23) Letter to the 52nd Social Week at Brest, in L'homme et la révolution urbaine, Lyon: Chronique sociale (1965), 8-9.

(24) Church in the World of Today, no. 71: AAS 58 (1966), 1093 [cf. TPS XI, 308].

(25) Ibid., no. 65: AAS 58 (1966), 1086 [cf. TPS XI, 303].

 

Those interested in Catholic Social Thought should look for a new book which came out of a 2007 conference held at the University of Scranton, and edited by Professor Kenneth R. Lord of UScranton, entitled "Two Views of Social Justice: A Catholic/Georgist Dialogue."  The version I've seen is the October, 2012, issue of The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, and I understand that it will be made available in other forms as well.

The abstract for the book:

Sixteen scholars have come together in this issue to examine eight social-justice themses from the perspectives of Catholic Social Thought and the philosophy of Henry George.  The themes they address are natural law, human nature, the nature of work, the nineteenth-century papal encyclical Rerum Novarum, causes of war, immigration, development, and wealth, and neighborhood revitalization.  While they sometimes wrangle with each other, their common aspiration is the same as their nineteenth-century predecessors,: to find solutions to the human suffering caused by injustice. 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 25 -- Alfred Marshall

The use of a certain area of the earth's surface is a primary condition of anything that man can do; it gives him room for his own actions, with the enjoyment of the heat and the light, the air and the rain which nature assigns to the area; and it determines his distance from, and in a great measure his relations to, other things and other persons.  We shall find that it is this property of "land" which, though as yet insufficient prominence has been given to it, is the ultimate cause of the distinction which all writers on economics are compelled to make between land and other things.

— PROF. ALFRED MARSHALL, of the University of Cambridge,

Principles of Economics, Vol. I., Book 4, Chap. 2, Sec. I.

 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 29 -- Seneca

All roads were free to each, and everyone
Had common use of all beneath the sun;
The earth, as mother of mankind confessed,
Was glad to nurse her children at her breast.

— SENECA, Octavia, Act II., Scene I.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 22 -- Schreiner

The doctrine that land can become the private property of one is a doctrine morally repugnant to the Bantu. The idea which is today beginning to haunt Europe, that, as the one possible salve for our social wounds and diseases, it might be well if the land should become again the property of the nation at large, is no ideal to the Bantu, but a realistic actuality. He finds it difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile his sense of justice with any other form of tenure.

— OLIVE SCHREINER, Stray Thoughts on South Africa, Fortnightly Review, July, 1896, p. 6.

That acre in Manhattan

An article in the NYT a few weeks ago described some proposed changes in the zoning for midtown Manhattan.

Bloomberg Pushes a Plan to Let Midtown Soar

The accompanying map says, "Around Grand Central Terminal, towers could be up to twice the size now permitted.  Development could also take place along the Park Avenue corridor, where towers could be more than 40% larger. Elsewhere in the district, towers could be 20% larger."

But New York’s premier district, the 70-block area around Grand Central Terminal, has lagged, Bloomberg officials say, hampered by zoning rules, decades old, that have limited the height of buildings.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wants to overhaul these rules so that buildings in Midtown Manhattan can soar as high as those elsewhere. New towers could eventually cast shadows over landmarks across the area, including St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. They could rise above the 59-story MetLife Building and even the 77-story Chrysler Building.

Mr. Bloomberg’s proposal reflects his effort to put his stamp on the city well after his tenure ends in December 2013. Moving swiftly, he wants the City Council to adopt the new zoning, for what is being called Midtown East, by October 2013, with the first permits for new buildings granted four years later.

His administration says that without the changes, the neighborhood around Grand Central will not retain its reputation as “the best business address in the world” because 300 of its roughly 400 buildings are more than 50 years old. These structures also lack the large column-free spaces, tall ceilings and environmental features now sought by corporate tenants.

The rezoning — from 39th Street to 57th Street on the East Side — would make it easier to demolish aging buildings in order to make way for state of-the-art towers.

Without it, “the top Class A tenants who have been attracted to the area in the past would begin to look elsewhere for space,” the administration says in its proposal.

The plan has stirred criticism from some urban planners, community boards and City Council members, who have contended that the mayor has acted hastily. They said they were concerned about the impact of taller towers in an already dense district where buildings, public spaces, streets, sidewalks and subways have long remained unchanged.

Mr. Bloomberg has encouraged high-rise development in industrial neighborhoods, including the Far West Side of Manhattan, the waterfront in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and in Long Island City, Queens. But with the proposal for Midtown, which is working its way through environmental and public reviews, he is tackling the city’s commercial heart.

“Unlocking the development potential in this area will generate historic opportunities for investment in New York City,” Deputy Mayor Robert K. Steel said.

The initiative would, in some cases, allow developers to build towers twice the size now permitted in the Grand Central area. The owner of the 19-story Roosevelt Hotel at Madison and 45th Street could replace it with a 58-story tower under the proposed rules. Current regulations permit no more than 30 floors.

See also http://lvtfan.typepad.com/lvtfans_blog/2008/03/hotel-roosevelt.html , which discusses this in terms of value of land per buildable square foot.

When zoning changes increase the value of land, who should reap the benefit?  The current landholder, or the community?    What did the landholder do to earn that windfall?  Do you think it comes out of thin air?  Do you think it is paid him by other rich people?

Or do you recognize that it is part of the structure which enriches a few and impoverishes the many?

It is easy to fix this one.  One just has to recognize the structure, and value the land correctly, and start collecting the lion's share of the land rent for the community.  If it is more than NYC can put to use -- and it will be -- then apply the excess to reducing our federal taxes on productive effort.  Use it to fund Social Security, or Medicare, or universal health insurance, or something else that will benefit the vast majority of us instead of an undeserving tiny privileged minority.  Don't throw it in the ocean, and don't leave it in private pockets, be they American or not. 

Collect   the   land   rent.    Repeat next year, and the next, and the next.  Natural Public Revenue.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 20 -- Howells

The common ownership of mines necessarily followed, with an allotment of lands to anyone who wished to live by tilling the land; but not a foot of the land was remitted to private hands for purposes of selfish pleasure or the exclusion of any other from the landscape.

— W. D. HOWELLS, A Traveler from Altruria, Chap. XI., p. 271.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 19 -- Aristotle

Of necessity, therefore, the land ought to be divided into two parts, one of which should belong to the community in general, the other to the individuals separately.

— ARISTOTLE, Politics, Book VII., Chap. 10.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 16 -- Plutarch

His next task, and indeed the most hazardous he ever undertook, was the making a new division of their lands.  For there was an extreme inequality among them, and their State was overloaded with a multitude of indigent and necessitous persons, while its whole wealth had centered upon a very few.

— PLUTARCH, Life of Lycurgus.

Born Yesterday

Well, not quite.  The film's a little older than I am.

Watched that film last night ... great quote:

Billie: Because when ya steal from the government, you're stealing from yourself, ya dumb ass.

And when we allow others to steal from the commons what rightly belongs to the community, what are we?   Some of that theft we all recognize as theft, and other kinds are perfectly legal, even honored, under our current laws.  I find the latter even more troubling than the former.

And when neither our economists nor our leaders even SEE it, it is fair to call that a corruption of what their businesses are supposed to be.

 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 11 -- William Seward

But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purpose. The territory is a part of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator of the Universe.

— WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Speech in the United States Senate, March 11, 1850.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 7 -- Archdeacon Paley

We now speak of property in land; and there is a difficulty in explaining the origin of this property consistently with the law of nature; for the land was once, no doubt, common; and the question is, how any particular part of it could justly be taken out of the common and so appropriated to the first owner as to give him a better right to it than others; and what is more, a right to exclude others from it. Moralists have given many different accounts of this matter, which diversity alone, perhaps, is a proof that none of them are satisfactory.

— ARCHDEACON PALEY, Moral and Political Philosophy (1785), Book III., Part I., Chap 4.

See also January 28 and 29, and Kate Kennedy's "Paley's Pigeons." 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 6 -- Pufendorf

All that natural law does is to suggest the establishment of property when the welfare of human society demands it, leaving it to the wisdom of men to determine whether they should allow private property in all things or only in some, and whether they should hold those which they appropriate separately or in common, leaving the rest to the first occupant, so that no one can assume the right to enjoy them alone.

— PUFENDORF, Law of Nature and Nations (1672), Book IV., Chap. 4, Sec. 4.   

The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 5 -- Spencer

Equity, therefore, does not permit property in land.  For if one portion of the earth's surface may justly become the possession of an individual and may be held by him for his sole use and benefit as a thing to which he has an exclusive right, then other portions of the earth's surface may be so held; and eventually the whole of the earth's surface may be so held; and our planet may thus lapse into private hands.

— HERBERT SPENCER, in 1850, Social Statics, Chap. IX.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 4 -- Bagehot

In the early ages of society it would have been impossible to maintain the exclusive ownership of a few persons in what seems at first sight an equal gift to all (the land) — a thing to which everyone has the same claim.   

— WALTER BAGEHOT (1826-1877), Economic Studies, Essay I., Part I., p. 31.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 3 -- Marmontel

Let us suppose that a people is excluded from the ownership of the land.  I say that this exclusion, even if followed by no other injustice (which I think impossible), by making a man a stranger to the commonwealth, makes him indifferent to the existence of the State.

— MARMONTEL, Address in Favor of the Peasants of the North (1757), Oeuvres, Vol X., p. 72.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 2 -- Jefferies

That any human being should dare to apply to another the epithet "pauper" is, to me, the greatest, the vilest, the most unpardonable crime that could be committed.  Each human being by mere birth has a birthright in this earth and all its productions; and if they do not receive it, then it is they who are injured, and it is not the "pauper," oh, inexpressibly wicked word! — it is the well-to-do who are the criminal classes.

— RICHARD JEFFERIES, The Story of My Heart, Chap. X., p. 122.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: September 30 -- Exodus and the Bishop of Meath

The land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

— Exodus, XX., 12.

Any settlement of the land of a country that would exclude the humblest man in that country from his share of the common inheritance would be not only an injustice and a wrong to that man, but moreover would be an impious resistance to the benevolent intentions of the Creator. 

— BISHOP OF MEATH, Letter to Clergy and Laity, April 2, 1881.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: September 29 -- Froude

Land is not, and cannot be, property in the sense in which movable things are property.  Every human being born into this planet must live upon the land if he lives at all.  He did not ask to be born, and, being born, room must be found for him. The land in any country is really the property of the nation which occupies it.

— J. A. FROUDE, Ireland, Nineteenth Century, September, 1880, p. 362.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: September 13 -- Winstanley

That which is yet wanting on your part to be done is this, to see that the oppressor's power be cast out with his person; and to see that the free possession of the land and liberties be put into the hands of the oppressed commoners of England.

— JERRARD WINSTANLEY,  Epistle Dedicatory to Oliver Cromwell, in

The Law of Freedom in a Platform, or True Magistracy Restored.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: September 12 -- Grant Allen

"But how is it that you allow these chiefs — landlords, don't you call them? — to taboo the soil, and prevent you all from even walking on it? Don't you see that if you choose to combine in a body, and insist upon the recognition of your natural rights — if you determined to make the landlords give up their taboo, and cease from injustice, they'd have to yield to you? And then you could exercise your natural right of going where you pleased, and cultivate the land in common for the public benefit, instead of leaving it as now, to be cultivated anyhow, or turned into waste, for the benefit of the tabooers?"

— GRANT ALLEN, The British Barbarians (Words spoken by Bertram).

The Earth-for-All Calendar: September 8 -- Sir Thomas More

The nobility and gentry and even those holy men, the abbots, not content with the old rents that their farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they, living at their ease, do no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt instead of good.  . . .  As if forest and parks had swallowed up too little of the land, those worthy countrymen turn the best inhabited places into solitude.

 — SIR THOMAS MORE, Utopia (1516), Book I.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: September 6 -- A. R. Wallace

A great landholder may legally convert his whole property into a forest or hunting ground, and expel every human being who has lived upon it.  In a thickly populated country like England, where almost every acre has its owner and occupier, this is a power of legally destroying his fellow-creatures; and that such a power should exist, and be exercised by individuals, in however small a degree, indicates that as regards true social science, we are still in a state of barbarism.

— ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE,The Malay Archipelago, Chap. 40.  Final Note to the book. (1869)

One's "Fair Share"

The post below this one, "Mitt Romney's 'Fair Share' " refers to his fair share of the costs of providing public goods.

But perhaps an equally important question is the nature of one's fair share of the output of our economy and the output of the earth.  Some of the former output is the result of individual efforts, and one ought to be able to keep that portion. But at the same time we must recognize how much comes from the division of labor, from drawing down on the non-infinite supply of non-renewable natural resources on which all of us today must depend and on which future generations of human beings must rely. Those who draw down more than their legitimate share owe something to the rest of the community.  Our wealthiest tend, we suspect, to use many, many times their legitimate share, and the median American likely draws far more than their share, when one considers the planet as a whole.   

Perhaps "legitimate" is not the right word here.  It refers to what is permissible under current law.  (The word gets misused a lot -- see the discussion on "legitimate rape," which seemed to be about the circumstances under which a woman has a right to make a specific very personal, decision, and when it is considered by some to not be left to her and is the province of government, legislators or others.)

What is one's "fair share" of natural resources?  America is using a hugely disproportionate share of the world's resources.  Are we entitled to it because we're somehow "exceptional"?  Because "our" God is somehow better than other nation's Gods?   Or do we genuinely believe that all people are created equal, and intend to live our lives accordingly?

Our output of greenhouse gases exceeds our share of the world's population.  This is not without consequences for the world, and for peace on earth.

We ought to be re-examining our incentives so that they move us in the direction we ought to be going, which is, to my mind, using less.  We can build transportation infrastructure which will permit many more of us to move around with less impact on the environment.  We can fund that through collecting the increases in land value that infrastructure creates.  We can correct the incentives which cause us to use today's inferior technologies to extract natural resources from the earth in ways which damage the environment, as if ours was the final generation, or the only one worth serious consideration.

Better incentives could reduce, eliminate, even reverse urban sprawl.  I refer specifically to land value taxation as a replacement for the existing property tax, particularly in places where assessments are for one reason or another not consistent with current property values -- e.g., California and Florida, parts of Delaware and Pennsylvania which currently use assessments from the 1970s, and many other places where assessments are simply out of whack with current reality!)  We should be replacing sales taxes, wage taxes, building taxes with taxes on land value and on natural resources.  Most of that value is flowing generously into private or corporate pockets, to our detriment.  It concentrates wealth, income, and, of course, political power. 

Collecting the rent, instead of leaving the lion's share of it to be pocketed by the rent-seekers, would go a long way to making our society and our economy healthier.  Eliminating the privilege of privatizing that which in a wisely designed society would be our common treasure would make our society a better place in which to live, a place in which all could thrive and prosper without victimizing their fellow human beings. 

Stiglitz: "Mitt Romney’s Fair Share"

a few excerpts from: "Mitt Romney’s Fair Share" by Joseph E. Stiglitz | Project Syndicate.

A major theme of the underlying political debate in the United States is the role of the state and the need for collective action. The private sector, while central in a modern economy, cannot ensure its success alone. For example, the financial crisis that began in 2008 demonstrated the need for adequate regulation.

Moreover, beyond effective regulation (including ensuring a level playing field for competition), modern economies are founded on technological innovation, which in turn presupposes basic research funded by government. This is an example of a public good – things from which we all benefit, but that would be undersupplied (or not supplied at all) were we to rely on the private sector.

Conservative politicians in the US underestimate the importance of publicly provided education, technology, and infrastructure. Economies in which government provides these public goods perform far better than those in which it does not.

But public goods must be paid for, and it is imperative that everyone pays their fair share. While there may be disagreement about what that entails, those at the top of the income distribution who pay 15% of their reported income (money accruing in tax shelters in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens may not be reported to US authorities) clearly are not paying their fair share. ...

I have to disagree with the second sentence of this next paragraph.  And I think Stiglitz knows better, if he stops to think about it:

Democracies rely on a spirit of trust and cooperation in paying taxes. If every individual devoted as much energy and resources as the rich do to avoiding their fair share of taxes, the tax system either would collapse, or would have to be replaced by a far more intrusive and coercive scheme. Both alternatives are unacceptable. 

We don't need intrusive or coercive; we just need to start collecting the lion's share of the rent!  Well, I suppose some rent-seekers would find this extremely intrusive -- it intrudes on their habit of self-enrichment by privatizing of what is rightly and logically our PUBLIC treasure, the logical way of financing PUBLIC goods.   And Professor Stiglitz is quite aware of the value of natural resources; he may not be quite as conscious of the value of urban and other well-situated land.   

Our national recordkeeping doesn't even collect the valuations of land and natural resources on any consistent basis! (One could reasonably argue that this failure-to-measure is a form of corruption!)  What we don't measure we can't do anything about.  And the powers that be are quite content with how we do things; the benefits accrue to them!  And several generations of college-educated people know nothing about the issue, which was well known and widely discussed 100 years ago.  (Look into the extensive Single Tax literature and the ideas of Henry George.)

Some more excerpts:

The billionaire investor Warren Buffett argues that he should pay only the taxes that he must, but that there is something fundamentally wrong with a system that taxes his income at a lower rate than his secretary is required to pay. He is right. Romney might be forgiven were he to take a similar position. Indeed, it might be a Nixon-in-China moment: a wealthy politician at the pinnacle of power advocating higher taxes for the rich could change the course of history.

Comments

But Romney has not chosen to do so. He evidently does not recognize that a system that taxes speculation at a lower rate than hard work distorts the economy. Indeed, much of the money that accrues to those at the top is what economists call rents, which arise not from increasing the size of the economic pie, but from grabbing a larger slice of the existing pie.

Those at the top include a disproportionate number of monopolists who increase their income by restricting production and engaging in anti-competitive practices; CEOs who exploit deficiencies in corporate-governance laws to grab a larger share of corporate revenues for themselves (leaving less for workers); and bankers who have engaged in predatory lending and abusive credit-card practices (often targeting poor and middle-class households). It is perhaps no accident that rent-seeking and inequality have increased as top tax rates have fallen, regulations have been eviscerated, and enforcement of existing rules has been weakened: the opportunity and returns from rent-seeking have increased. 

Today, a deficiency of aggregate demand afflicts almost all advanced countries, leading to high unemployment, lower wages, greater inequality, and – coming full, vicious circle – constrained consumption. There is now a growing recognition of the link between inequality and economic instability and weakness.

There is another vicious circle: Economic inequality translates into political inequality, which in turn reinforces the former, including through a tax system that allows people like Romney – who insists that he has been subject to an income-tax rate of “at least 13%” for the last ten years – not to pay their fair share. The resulting economic inequality – a result of politics as much as market forces – contributes to today’s overall economic weakness. 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: September 4 -- Sir Thomas More

For they account it a very just cause of war for a nation to hinder others from possessing a part of the soil, of which they make no use, but which is suffered to lie idle and uncultivated; since every man has by the law of Nature a right to such waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his subsistence.

— SIR THOMAS MORE, Utopia (1516), Book II., tit. Of Their Traffic.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: September 2 -- Gerrit Smith and Thomas Paine

The vacant land belongs to the landless.  The simple fact that the one is vacant and the other landless is of itself the highest proof that they should be allowed to come together.  Alas, what a crime against nature that they should be kept apart.

— GERRIT SMITH, Smith's Speeches in the U. S. Congress, p. 247 (1854). 

The earth in its natural uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race.

—THOMAS PAINE, Agrarian Justice (1797),  Paine's Writings, Vol. III,, p. 329.

Devyr: Thoughts addressed to every true and brave man (1882)

Thoughts addressed to every true and brave man:

The Creator either made the land
Or He did not.

He made it for the dukes and lords,
Or He did not.

He made it for the people,
Or He did not.

To pay Rent to earth-lords, is it a DENIAL OF THE
CREATOR?
Or is it not?

Is it hard to know His will?
Or is it not?

If you know His will
And do it not,

Are ye brave and true men,
Or are ye not?

Thomas Ainge Devyr

The Earth-for-All Calendar -- August 21 -- Carlyle and Paine

Properly speaking, the land belongs to these two — to the Almighty God and to all the children of men that have ever worked well on it, or that shall ever work well on it.

— THOMAS CARLYLE, Past and Present, Book III., Chap. 8.

Every man, as an inhabitant of the earth, is a joint proprietor of it in its natural State.

— THOMAS PAINE, Agrarian Justice, Paine's Writings, Vol. III., pp. 330-1.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: August 15 -- Rousseau

It was in vain anyone repeated, "I built this well; I gained this spot by my industry." Who gave you the boundaries? it might be objected, and what right have you to demand payment of us for doing what we did not require of you? Are you ignorant that numbers of your fellow-creatures are starving for want of what you possess in superfluity?

— J. J. ROUSSEAU, Essay on the Origin of Inequality Among Men, Part II., p. 20.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: August 14 -- De Laveleye

We occupy an island, on which we live by the fruits of our labor; a shipwrecked sailor is cast up on it; what is his right? May he say: "I, too, am a man; I, too, have a natural right to cultivate the soil. I may, therefore, on the same title as you, occupy a corner of the land to support myself by my labor?"

— EMILE DE LAVELEYE, Primitive Property, Chap. XXVII., p. 351

The Earth-for-All Calendar: September 14 -- Abbe Lamennais

If you know how to defend your rights, if you accomplish your duty, this frightful disorder will cease, the human race, lifted up after its long downfall, will no longer be the property of a few tyrants, neither will the earth be their exclusive heritage.  All will share in the good things destined by Providence for all.

— ABBE LAMENNAIS, The Book of the People, Chap. XVI.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: August 13 -- Emerson

Then he says: "If I am born into the earth, where is my part? Have the goodness, gentlemen of this world, to show me my wood lot, where I may fell my wood, my field where to plant my corn, my pleasant ground where to build my cabin."

"Touch any wood or field or house-lot on your peril," cry all the gentlemen of this world; "but you may come and work in ours for us, and we will give you a piece of bread."

— EMERSON, The Conservative.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: August 10 -- Dickens

In love of home the love of country has its rise, and who are the truer patriots or the better in time of need — those who venerate the land, owning its woods and streams and earth and all that they produce, or those who love their country, boasting not a foot of ground in all its wide domain?

— CHARLES DICKENS, Old Curiosity Shop, Chap. XXXVIII.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: August 4 -- Adam Smith

The wood of the forest, the grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which when land was in common, cost the laborer only the trouble of gathering them, come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them. He must then pay for the license to gather them, and must give up to the landlord a portion of what his labor either collects or produces. This portion, or what comes to the same thing, the price of this portion, constitutes the rent of the land.

— ADAM SMITH, The Wealth of Nations, Book I., Chap. 6.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: July 15 -- Coleridge

It seems an elementary proposition that a free people can deal as it thinks fit with its common stock, and can prescribe to its citizens rules for its enjoyment, alienation and transmission.

— LORD CHIEF JUSTICE COLERIDGE, The Laws of Property, Address before the Glasgow Juridical Society, Macmillan's Magazine, April, 1888, p. 406.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: July 7 -- John Stuart Mill

The social problem of the future we consider to be, how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the benefits of combined labor.

— JOHN STUART MILL, Autobiography, Chap. VII., p. 232.

A Carbon Tax, Sensible for All - NYTimes.com

A Carbon Tax, Sensible for All - NYTimes.com.

ON Sunday, the best climate policy in the world got even better: British Columbia’s carbon tax — a tax on the carbon content of all fossil fuels burned in the province — increased from $25 to $30 per metric ton of carbon dioxide, making it more expensive to pollute.

This was good news not only for the environment but for nearly everyone who pays taxes in British Columbia, because the carbon tax is used to reduce taxes for individuals and businesses. Thanks to this tax swap, British Columbia has lowered its corporate income tax rate to 10 percent from 12 percent, a rate that is among the lowest in the Group of 8 wealthy nations. Personal income taxes for people earning less than $119,000 per year are now the lowest in Canada, and there are targeted rebates for low-income and rural households.

The only bad news is that this is the last increase scheduled in British Columbia. In our view, the reason is simple: the province is waiting for the rest of North America to catch up so that its tax system will not become unbalanced or put energy-intensive industries at a competitive disadvantage.

Over dinner tonight, Milton Friedman's name came up, and I commented that in about 1978 and again in 2006, a few weeks before his death, Milton Friedman called land value taxation the "least bad" tax, but never lifted a finger in the intervening years to help promote it.

The carbon tax is another good, and wise, and just, tax. 

How many economists will put their shoulder to getting it enacted? 

How many will simply hang out in their ivory towers?

Let’s start with the economics. Substituting a carbon tax for some of our current taxes — on payroll, on investment, on businesses and on workers — is a no-brainer. Why tax good things when you can tax bad things, like emissions? The idea has support from economists across the political spectrum, from Arthur B. Laffer and N. Gregory Mankiw on the right to Peter Orszag and Joseph E. Stiglitz on the left. That’s because economists know that a carbon tax swap can reduce the economic drag created by our current tax system and increase long-run growth by nudging the economy away from consumption and borrowing and toward saving and investment.

...

What would a British Columbia-style carbon tax look like in the United States? According to our calculations, a British Columbia-style $30 carbon tax would generate about $145 billion a year in the United States. That could be used to reduce individual and corporate income taxes by 10 percent, and afterward there would still be $35 billion left over.

Why on earth should the privilege to pollute OUR air be be given away for free, or for less than the social costs it imposes on us?  Who benefits from such a system?

A carbon tax makes sense whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, a climate change skeptic or a believer, a conservative or a conservationist (or both). We can move past the partisan fireworks over global warming by turning British Columbia’s carbon tax into a made-in-America solution.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: July 3 - Simon Newcomb

The doctrine that the soil is of natural right the common property of the human race, and that each individual should be allowed to enjoy his share, is now tacitly admitted by many eminent economists in England and France.

— PROF. SIMON NEWCOMB, The Labor Question, North American Review, July, 1870, p. 151.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: June 22 -- Pufendorf

In principle I do not see why the sea should be dispensed from serving our need and comfort, any more than the land. However . . . men were left free to make private property of the sea as well as of the land, or to leave it in its primitive state, common to all, so that it should not belong to one more than to another.

— PUFENDORF, Law of Nature and Nations (1672), Book IV., Chap. 5, Sec. 5.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: June 11 - Old English Rhyme

It is a sin for man or woman
To steal a goose from off the common;
But who shall plead that man's excuse
Who steals the common from the goose?

— Old English Rhyme, quoted in Gowing's Life of Cobden, p. 120, note.