Sources of great fortunes (LVTFan's Blog)

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Pages I refer to often

Income Distribution in the US
How is our income distributed? Well, it is pretty concentrated. How concentrated? Take a look.
Progress and Poverty, by Henry George
Here are links to online editions of George's landmark book, Progress & Poverty, including audio and a number of abridgments -- the shortest is 30 words! I commend this book to your attention, if you are concerned about economic justice, poverty, sprawl, energy use, pollution, wages, housing affordability. Its observations will change how you approach all these problems. A mind-opening experience!
Wealth Concentration Tables from 2004 SCF: Bottom 90%, Next 9% and Top 1%
Aggregated data by net worth quantile, for various kinds of wealth. With calculations you won't find anywhere else!
Wealth Concentration Tables from 2004 SCF: 50-40-5-4-1
These tables show how concentrated the ownership of various kinds of assets are. With calculations you won't find anywhere else! This version is less aggregated: Bottom 50%, Next 40%, Next 5%, Next 4% and Top 1%.

Books I Value

Henry George: Progress and Poverty: An inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of increase of want with increase of wealth ... The Remedy
This is perhaps the most important book ever written on the subjects of poverty, political economy, how we might live together in a society dedicated to the ideals Americans claim to believe are self-evident. It will provide you new lenses through which to view many of our most serious problems and how we might go about solving them: poverty, sprawl, long commutes, despoilation of the environment, housing affordability, wealth concentration, income concentration, concentration of power, low wages, etc. Read it online, or in hardcopy.
Bob Drake's abridgement of Henry George's original: Progress and Poverty: Why There Are Recessions and Poverty Amid Plenty -- And What To Do About It!
This is a very readable thought-by-thought updating of Henry George's longer book, written in the language of a newsweekly. A fine way to get to know Henry George's ideas. Available online at progressandpoverty.org and http://www.henrygeorge.org/pcontents.htm

Where Else Might You Look?

Wealth and Want
The URL comes from the subtitle to Progress & Poverty -- and the goal is widely shared prosperity in the 21st century. How do we get there from here? A roadmap and a reference source.
Reforming the Property Tax for the Common Good
I'm a tax reform activist who seeks to promote fairness and reduce poverty. Let's start with the enabling legislation and state requirements for the property tax. There are opportunities for great good!
A blog about Stamford, Connecticut, and its opportunities for progress and prosperity for all
Bringing it home to one medium-sized city's day to day issues and opportunities
LVTFan's blog: Connecting the dots between our most serious problems and what I've come to believe is the solution we need to embrace.
I'm a tax reform activist who seeks to promote fairness and reduce poverty in America. Land Value Taxation seems to me to be our very best hope for these goals, and for reducing urban sprawl and its concomitants.

Sites I enjoy

CityEconomist: City Economic and Financial News and Analysis
Dr. Gavin R. Putland
Land Rent will save the world
Land Value Tax | Jock's Place
Mark Wadsworth's blog
Mason Gaffney's website
Progress and Poverty: why there are recessions and poverty amid plenty -- and what to do about it! by Henry George
This is Bob Drake's excellent 2006 abridgment of Henry George's landmark book, Progress and Poverty. Its language and tone are very accessible. You can read it online or order hardcopy. And Bob's reading of it is available at http://www.hgchicago.org/audio
Saving Communities
Taxpayer: a more or less Henry George view of things
The Distributist Review

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« Public Ownership of essential utilities | Main | Riches from real estate: cui bono? »

February 10, 2011

Sources of great fortunes

Here's another from "Tax Facts." It speaks to the difference between fortunes which come about because of privileges granted (or grabbed), and those created through rendering service and -- not so incidentally -- employing people!

Should we continue to look the other way when we see privilege? Should we educate the next generation to continue to permit privileges, and to accept the miserable effects they create on society as a whole?

GREAT FORTUNES

President Coolidge gives his approval of the great fortunes in this country on the ground that they have been the means — through the various endowments — of promoting learning and culture.

The righteousness of a great fortune depends not upon the end to which it is put, but upon the source from which it came. If a man earns his fortune he can do so only by employing labor and producing wealth, or by rendering his fellow men some great service. A fortune made in that way benefits all.

But when a fortune is made through legal privilege, by a grant from a king, by a franchise from a republic — which grant or franchise he sells or leases to another for a great sum — the possessor of that fortune has employed no labor, produced no wealth and rendered no service to his fellow men. The owner of that fortune is a social parasite, and a burden upon his fellows. He has done society a wrong that never can be righted by devoting a part of the fortune, no matter how large a part, to public service.

Nor does the virtue of a fortune depend upon its size. One dollar gotten without adequate return is wrong. A million gotten by service may be justified.

Posted on February 10, 2011 at 03:52 PM in charity and justice, franchises, free lunch, privilege, wealth distribution or concentration, windfalls | Permalink

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LVTFan's Blog

Land Value Taxation will solve many of the 21st century's most serious social, economic and environmental problems, and promote justice, fairness and sustainability. We CAN have a world in which all can prosper.

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