When I am elected President ...

That was the title of a talk I heard some months ago, by my friend Mike Curtis, and with his permission, I'm sharing it here.  [The links are my additions.]

When I am elected president I will initiate legislation that will end poverty.  It will create full employment, raise wages, and make housing affordable for all Americans.  It will increase the return on savings,  stop inflation, and end recessions.  It will rejuvenate our cities, outlaw pollution, and generate a socially-created fund to pay for national health care and social security. 

This legislation, once enacted, will deliver an abundance of opportunity, strengthen the incentives, and protect the rights of property.   Revenues will come from the value of benefits received —— exclusive privileges assigned by the government.

I know it is hard to imagine.  When it sounds too good to be true it almost certainly is.  But think for a moment how far we have come in the last 150 years, from the sickle and the scythe to monster farming equipment where a single person can harvest thousands of acres; the electric light, the tractor-trailer, and the interstate -state highway system; houses that are built in factories with guns that shoot nails — day and night, rain or shine; Iron and petroleum turned into steel and plastics and assembled into automobiles with robotic machinery; airplanes that travel at near the speed of sound; while the internet sends voice and data to and from any place in the world in a matter of seconds.  Look at those little personal computers that now cost a few hundred dollars.  How long would it take to store, calculate, retrieve, and print all the information that computers now do, with pencils and paper?  How close are we to the point where all these things could be powered by wind, solar, and other non-polluting energies?  Think of the hundred thousand examples, which these only suggest, and then you tell me:  do you think we are capable of producing enough wealth that everyone could enjoy a healthy and prosperous standard of living?  Nature has blessed this world with abundance. There is really no need to fight over oil.

This is not about leadership; I am not claiming to be a political savior.  I’m talking  about the foundations of prosperity --- Liberty, and Justice.  It is on the Earth that we stand and from the Earth that we produce our food, clothing, and shelter, automobiles, televisions and everything else we need to survive and satisfy our desires.  It is because you can’t make something out of nothing that I am asserting a common right to the natural opportunities of this vast and bountiful land.  No longer will anyone have to pay a ransom for the opportunity to live and work in America.  At the same time I am also promising freedom and  free enterprise.  Let the Market decide the value of everything — including the value of land, which is our common asset.

We must grant exclusive title to land, for who would plant a crop, much less build a  house, factory, or office building if they couldn’t put up a fence and lock the door.  But, in exchange for the exclusive use of our common opportunity, every landholder must pay to the community the rental value of the land they hold.  And in that way satisfy everyone else’s equal right to the same piece of land.  What could be more fair, and what could be more in line with free enterprise than that? 

As our cities and urban areas are developed and redeveloped there will certainly remain plenty of places without infrastructure and the regimentation of urban communities.   Here, any individualist who wants to live apart in self sufficiency can do so as long as he doesn’t, in any way, degrade the natural environment for others or future generations.

Yes, in collecting for society those socially created values that attach to land we will be establishing a new economic system.  The rent of land would fund all the legitimate expenses, for the most part the traditional expenses, of government.  For without the infrastructure, the preservation of order, and the administration of justice much of the value of land, our common asset, would be diminished. 

But there is far more to the economic system of Henry George.  The rent of land is a value that grows with material progress.  It is the natural source of funding for national healthcare and social security, for the needs of those who are mentally and physically unable to take care of themselves. 

This fund is not provided as a redistribution of wealth where we take from the rich and give to the poor, but as a common right of each to that portion of the wealth that exceeds what individuals can produce for themselves.  It is that portion of the wealth which cannot be attributed to the efforts of individuals, but is produced by the conscious and subconscious cooperation of the community and society as a whole.

There are also businesses which are in their nature monopolies — businesses in which there can not reasonably be competition, like the streets and highways; the railroads — not necessarily the train companies that could compete like trucking companies — but the tracks; the utilities with pipes and wires that carry water, sewer, gas, electric, phone, and the internet.  If we socialize these inherent monopolies we can safely abolish all others.  We can let the free market prevail — constrained only by our concerns for health, safety, and the environment.

That means there will be no taxes on productive capital: buildings, machinery, and products in the course of being made and exchanged.  

There will be no taxes on the income from productive capital, for capital is produced by the workers, and therefore, it belongs — unconditionally — to the workers who produced it — to consume, to exchange, to invest.

I will conclude by simply saying: If you really want change, do not accept 4 quarters for a dollar.

Join the party of Henry George  and vote for opportunity; for liberty; and for justice.

I think this is the right platform for America's future