I thought this presentation -- made nearly 100 years ago, in December, 1911, to County Assessors in California -- worth sharing. (Merriam-Webster defines plunderbund as "a league of commercial, political, or financial interests that exploits the public.") That such a paper would be delivered to such a body gives one a hint of how widely understood and appreciated Georgist ideas were 100 years ago. The notes say:
"Mr. Edmund Norton presented a paper entitled "What is Single Tax?" Upon conclusion of the reading, which was interspersed with many extemporaneous remarks by the speaker, a very free discussion of the subject was held, and many interrogatories propounded to the author of the paper."
I'll give you the final paragraphs first, and then the whole talk.
Never, while the world lasts, will mankind become "Masters, lords and rulers" of themselves till these public values are publicly absorbed in taxation. The Single Tax is the most feasible, practical, expedient, simple, natural and just way of making the necessary, rational change without the violence of revolution. It stands "four square to all the winds that blow" — in economics, and politics; in ethics, morals and religion; in principle, science and philosophy; it is the practical application of Christianity to social affairs. "Equal Rights to All and Special Privileges to None," is the translation of the Golden Rule of the Nazarene to an economic and political formula. Therefore, fulfilled democracy is applied Christianity to governmental affairs.
"Do unto others as ye would that they should do to you," "Equal Rights to all and special privileges to none"; the Single Tax: these are synonymous.
Here we have the great Eleventh Commandment of the Master of Nazareth — the sum total of all "the Law and all the prophets" — we have its Jeffersonian formulation into a politico-social maxim of "Equal rights to all," and its scientific practical application in the Single Tax of Henry George. This is applied Christianity; this is democracy; this is Georgean philosophy; this is the Single Tax; different expressions of the one Unity.
and here's the whole thing:
WHAT IS THE SINGLE TAX?
The Georgean Philosophy and the Jeffersonian Formula.
By Edmund Norton.
Never in the history of the world have there been so many inquiring minds asking: "What is the Single Tax and the Georgean Philosophy?" In England, Germany, Australia and Canada, as elsewhere, the constructive work of the leading statesmen is all being developed along the lines laid down by Henry George. To my mind, "The Prophet of San Francisco," as he was derisively dubbed by the Duke of Argyle, is, measured by his influence on the world of statesmanship, present and future, and as a sociological thinker, the greatest personality in the Western world between the North Pole and Patagonia since Columbus found the land. Henry George has found more continents than did Columbus by uncovering monopoly-submerged lands in the presence of which we hungered and died.
This paper is meant to merely outline the principles and philosophy of the great school of thought that has grown up in the last thirty years around its teachings that now has a literature of its own that will fill a library.
The Single Tax is the popular name of the great fiscal reform and social philosophy most powerfully promulgated by our great American, Henry George, sometimes called "the Prophet of San Francisco."
WHAT IT PROPOSES TO DO.
Its purpose is to increase wages to the full returns or earnings of labor; to shorten the hours necessary to earn a living; to leave to capital, which is secondary labor, its full returns, which are secondary wages; to abolish monopoly, which is the thief that is robbing both labor and capital, and thereby prove the unity and remove the apparent antagonisms which have no place in a natural order where monopoly does not exist. It will free production, including all trade, barter and exchange, which are but processes of production, and will equalize the distribution of wealth into the possession only of those who can earn it. It will destroy privilege by substituting equal natural rights, remove the dead hand from the control of living men; throw open the limitless natural resources of the planet to willing labor, and, by taking all social creations of value into the social treasury, will conserve all natural resources forever to the people and make private appropriation of public values impossible. This condition will start a boom that will never stop till every human want is satisfied.
It will make internecine and international wars impossible by destroying all trade and monopoly privileges which are the chief causes tempting the crafty, cunning and unscrupulous to create or encourage these sum totals of all vices, crimes and horrors against humanity for personal power and profit.
THE METHOD OF ATTAINMENT.
The Single Tax does not intend to add to or multiply the already almost infinite statutory enactments now confusing and befuddling the social state, but rather means to abolish, one after the other, every law on the statute books granting a special privilege to any one man or body of men that is at the expense of the unprivileged mass of society. This will destroy the petty and grand larceny now preying upon the social body.
Aside from the million of petty privileges granted by municipalities, states and the nation to individuals, the great and glorious pillage shows itself in privileges and monopoly in labor-saving inventions, trade restrictions and the private ownership of natural resources, the major part of which is a matter of taxation; therefore, the Single Tax would abolish all taxes on barter, trade, exchange, personal property and improvements, commensurately raising all taxes from the value of land alone, till there was in existence but one single tax upon the value of bare land exclusive of improvements. This would be a single tax on land value — not on land, for some land would pay no tax while other land would pay much tax.
For instance, one acre of land worth a million dollars would pay as much tax as a million acres worth only one dollar per acre.
SQUARES WITH THE MORAL LAW.
The Single Tax is ethically sound in application for the simple reason that all labor-created wealth is the result of individual effort and leaving that wealth untaxed would be leaving to the individual only that which belonged to him by his right to himself and to that which he himself creates; while taking into the public treasury only those values which society creates in its collective capacity would be leaving to society only that which belongs to it, for no individual on earth, by himself, can create land values.
At present we compound injustice by permitting private individuals to appropriate what society creates and then society turns about and deprives the individual of his private creation to support the governments whose existence makes possible the public values privately appropriated.
This basic injustice results in a fundamental disturbance of the equilibrium of society, showing itself in numberless evils — economic, social, political, physical, mental and moral.
Mistaken symptoms for disease, effects for causes, we have numerous social quacks pressing forward with innumerable nostrums — palliative, alleviative, suppressive or curative of the particular symptoms they have noted — each claiming he has found a remedy and each ready to cure the world with a salve, bandage, pill or liniment.
The diseased social body can be cured only by removing the cause and restoring it to a normal condition. Monopoly and Special Privilege is all that the social body suffers from today, and destruction of Monopoly and Special Privilege will cure it. Equal rights to All and Special Privilege to None is the only magic remedy. Apply this, make man free and equal before the law and the Divine Mind operating through nature will do the rest.
Thomas Jefferson's was probably the greatest democratic mind of his age and the equal of any age. If we examine the Jeffersonian formula we will find it the square, level and compass, without which no nation can ever be permanently founded., The natural rights of man, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," we must take for granted, and the right of revolution — also put forth in the immortal document — "the Right of the People to alter or to abolish and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness" we must also take for granted.
The constitution — itself a reactionary document, taking away from the people perhaps 75% of the liberties gained in the war of 1776 — still leaves us the power to apply the golden rule of democratic thought to our government without violence — for which we may be thankful.
If we view the recent, present and past history of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Colorado, Springfield, New York, Albany, Pittsburg, and the nation at large, we will have to confess that now and for fifty years past, at least, municipality, state and nation have been passing through a Saturnalia of public pillage by Special Privileges working through varying forms of oligarchic, partisan and political control. The government has been wrested from the hand of Democracy by Plutocratic privileges.
Applying the rule of Equal Rights to All, we clearly see that while these rights exist, the power to exercise them has been nullified; therefore, all of these reforms such as the Initiative, Referendum, Recall, Commission Government for cities, Direct Primaries and Popular Senatorial elections, are democratic efforts for the restoration of the Mechanics of Government into the hands of Equal Citizens.
I say the Mechanics of Government, for in no sense will the people be at all benefited permanently, even by the perfection of these reforms, which are but tools of government to develop efficiency of popular expression, unless they grasp these economic truths and change or readjust economic conditions. Indeed they might be worse off, for having captured these means completely, they might mistake them for ends, and believing their victory full, might slumber while being worse pillaged, which has been the case in the past.
I wish to inject here one pertinent suggestion — cities, within themselves, should have absolute right to exert self-government in all things within their borders that do not infringe upon the equal freedom of other cities, the state or nation, especially in matters of taxation.
Having eliminated, then, the mechanics of government, suppose we apply our rule to the fiscal and economic conditions existing in our city of Los Angeles, and nearly every other city.
During the last fiscal year we raised about $5,000,000 in taxes imposed on land values, improvements, personal property and license — fines, which amounted to some $650,000. Now, there is no civic, fiscal or economic excuse for license, business and occupation fines other than police regulation or revenue raising.
Police regulations have no reason for existence except to protect the citizens from infringement on his equal rights, and to grant a special privilege under any name whatever for some persons to possess to the exclusion of other persons, is a wrong that breaks our golden rule of Democracy and should be abolished on that ground alone.
For Government to grant these powers of wrong doing on receipt of a stipulated share of the profits of the wrong, is to participate in, sanction and legalize the wrong and thereby corrupt society at its fountain head by official and statutory enactments.
Again, varying the cost of these granted privileges from $1.00 to $200.00 or more per month is absurdly unjust, unequal and discriminative, for or against certain businesses, making another breach of the rule calling for their abolition.
The effect of these fines is to act as trade restrictions, as interference with production, and to centralize business in the hands of a dominant privileged class. They are national protective tariff superstitions localized for the benefit of civic plunder.
Here I wish to call your attention to a vital, absolute, commercial and economic law: ''All taxes on things produced by human exertion enter into the cost of production and are paid for by the ultimate consumer."
If we grasp this fact in its fullness we will see that these fines and taxes effect not so much the middlemen who are compelled by this inexorable law to add them to the price, as it does the ultimate consumer, who is the whole body of society. Thus we do not hit the one we imagine, but simply strike ourselves.
To abolish them would be to free trade, diffuse business, accelerate its activity and lower prices to the ultimate consumer, permitting him to retain a greater amount of his earned wealth.
If we could so emphasize this one law as to make all see it, the ideals of democracy would be here.
I have laid particular stress on this all-important law because it applies not only to license fines but to all personal property and improvement taxes — on everything made by man. Therefore, in all forms of wealth in course of production there are no real taxpayers but the ultimate consumers — the intermediary is only a tax shifter. This is vital.
The Single Tax would abolish all these taxes; so would the Jeffersonian formula. In the two we have a principle and a method for its practical application.
To extend this practical application of the Democratic Principle to all things — including the international tariff — would immediately destroy the nightmare of high prices and flood the world with limitless possibilities of trade. This trade is now stifled and vast amounts of wealth are wrongly diverted to the possession of those who do not create or earn it.
The question arises: Where would you get the money to run the government if the Single Tax theory were put into operation? Of course! Why, there would be no place to get it except from land values. Here is something fastened to the world — possibly by the "Big Nail" of the North Pole — anyway it is where it can be seen; it can't run away, hide in a hole nor be loaned to a convenient friend in an adjoining county when the assessor comes around.
The millions of varieties and values of other forms of property being eliminated, scientific simplicity would be possible in taxation. Taking into the public treasury publicly created values in the form of a tax and leaving in the possession of private individuals their private creations, by tax exemptions, would square with the moral law. Incidentally, "Conservation of natural resources" would become an accomplished fact in city, state and nation; for the taxing power involved in the private possession of the "Unearned Increment," "Land Values," "Economic Kent," or "Ground Rent," is a governmental power now privately possessed, obtained by grant, theft or tax evasion. It is a special privilege held only by land owners — the abolition of which is necessary to the restoration of equal rights to all.
The private possession of a governmental privilege is, moreover, the prime motive — the chief incentive — to all the speculative holdings of idle city lots, agricultural, mining, timber, coal and oil lands, and all other natural resources. It is responsible for 90% of the speculative gambling that is prostituting city councils, state legislatures, the national government and even threatening the judiciary itself.
In fact, this basic injustice is at the bottom of 90% of all the vice, crime and graft — public and private — from which society is now suffering. The removal of the cause by the socialization of land values through the application of the Single Tax, would destroy the incentive, divert the evil tendencies to the best instead of the worst in society, displace an abnormal condition by a normal one, and cut out, eventually, the 90% of evil which we now deplore. The victories opening to us under these possible conditions are only picturable by the poet or the seer.
The Single Tax will remove unjust conditions by a rational, expedient process of readjustment. It will restore to the individual his freedom and to the state its own values.
The right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," "Equality of Opportunity," "Equality of Rights," and destruction of Special Privilege, all demand its enactment as the only natural and perfectly sane method of squaring these demands.
The equal right to life can never be guaranteed until equal right to the natural opportunities upon which that life depends is also guaranteed. A denial of one is the denial of the other.
The opening up of the limitless storehouse of nature on this continent alone, by the destruction of its monopoly, would be equivalent to discovering several new continents.
Labor and capital, unrestricted, would flow to these opportunities as the sparks fly upward. Relieved of the pressure at the bottom and congestion of trade restriction removed from the top, who can tell the wonderful possibilities of America?
Here, toward the last, we come in contact with another vital related problem: that of the functions and ownership of highways — national, state, county and municipal.
These highways are, in organ and function, to the social body, what veins, arteries and nerves are to the human body. They are the channels of communication and transportation for persons, property and intelligence. Interference, restriction, congestion — all tend to varying disorders in the social body. Perfect freedom to normal action is the solvent. Private control of a public function is privileged ownership of a governmental power which should never be tolerated in a state of equal freedom. In fact, equal freedom is impossible where special privileges of government are farmed out to private individuals.
It will be noted that practically all private possessions of land on the continent, except those facing free waterways, are criss-crossed, intersected and separated by these highways. Theoretically we can easily see that, should we grant absolute ownership of highways to one individual — even were every other adjustment on earth perfected — that one individual would be master of the continent, for no possible intercommunication of persons, property, or intelligence could take place on, by, through or across these arteries and nerves without his consent, which condition, if submitted to, would make him sole arbiter of the world.
What is true of the whole is fractionally true of any part. We can never establish Equality of Right till absolute freedom of highway is guaranteed. Private possession of highways is no more necessary to private possession of property than is private possession of the ocean necessary to private ownership of ships.
In fact, the rights of private property are abrogated when governmental power to exact tribute from private property is granted to a privileged few; therefore, "Equal Rights to All and Special Privilege to None,'' demand the application of the Georgean philosophy to highway functions as a democratic and not a socialistic measure.
When we remember that these privileges now controlled (facts of 1900 since accentuated) by the national steam railways alone are capitalized at $8,000,000,000 in excess of the $5,000,000,000 of actual cost, we can see the enormity of one form of special privilege and the corresponding abrogation of natural property rights.
In passing, I will say that there are three practical methods by which these rights may be restored.
(1) Government control, ownership and operation of entire systems;
(2) Government control, ownership and operation of roadbeds only through official control of despatching service — leaving free operation of untaxed capital in all else, or:
(3) Public taxation of all incomes and values in excess of current rate of interest on actual capital — said capital otherwise untaxed.
The practical applications of these principles are mere matters of detail, expediency and policy. The brains that organize and manipulate these gigantic social plunders in all their minutia, can just as well work out the details of public restitution when deprived of activity in private depredations — and would be glad of the job.
Applied, this would mean the destruction of special privilege in national railways, telegraph, telephone, street railways, water, light, heat, power and all other monopolies of highway function.
This, with absolute free trade and the taxation of land-values through all other things being exempt, would mean the complete abolition of "Special Privilege" in all things; the institution of "Equal Rights" the "Conservation of Natural Resources,'' and the restoration of "Equal Opportunity to All." When all this is done — and never until it is done — there will be left nothing but the individual problem for man to solve.
Again let me interject a vital suggestion: Had we absolute free trade — international, state and local — including absolute freedom of highways, which is but an extension of freedom of trade — in truth, had we reached perfection in production — for this all means freedom in production — had we all these things while still leaving the "Unearned Increment, or Economic Rent,'' in the hands of the land-owner — there would be no permanent benefit to society except that incident to the transitional period of readjustment. Eventually all these wonderful benefits would clearly raise nothing but land-values and make the plunderbund richer and mightier than ever. The rise and fall of land values measure all the advances of civilization and their private appropriators are the "Masters, lords and rulers in all lands'' of whom the poet spoke.
Never, while the world lasts, will mankind become "Masters, lords and rulers" of themselves till these public values are publicly absorbed in taxation. The Single Tax is the most feasible, practical, expedient, simple, natural and just way of making the necessary, rational change without the violence of revolution. It stands "four square to all the winds that blow" — in economics, and politics; in ethics, morals and religion; in principle, science and philosophy; it is the practical application of Christianity to social affairs. "Equal Rights to All and Special Privileges to None," is the translation of the Golden Rule of the Nazarene to an economic and political formula. Therefore, fulfilled democracy is applied Christianity to governmental affairs.
"Do unto others as ye would that they should do to you," "Equal Rights to all and special privileges to none"; the Single Tax: these are synonymous.
Here we have the great Eleventh Commandment of the Master of Nazareth — the sum total of all "the Law and all the prophets" — we have its Jeffersonian formulation into a politico-social maxim of "Equal rights to all," and its scientific practical application in the Single Tax of Henry George. This is applied Christianity; this is democracy; this is Georgean philosophy; this is the Single Tax; different expressions of the one Unity.
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