LVTFan's Blog

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 31 -- Shakespeare

Timon: Why should you want? Behold, the earth hath roots;
Within this mile break forth a hundred springs;
The oaks bear mast, the briers scarlet hips;
The bounteous housewife, Nature, on each bush
Lays her fullness before you. Want! Why want ?

—Shakspere: "Timon of Athens," Act IV., Scene 3.

Timon: Common mother, thou, (digging)
Whose womb unmeasureable, and infinite breast
Teems and feeds all.

 —Ibid.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 30 -- Markham

No privilege bars a tree's access
To Earth's whole store of preciousness.
The trees stand level on God's floor,
With equal nearness to his store.

Edwin Markham, "Lincoln and Other Poems," p. 49.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 29 -- Markham

When God's warm justice is revealed—
The kingdom that the Father planned—
His children all will equal stand
As trees upon a level field.

There each one has a goodly space—
Each yeoman of the woodland race—
Each has a foothold on the Earth,
A place for business and for mirth.

—Edwin Markham, "Lincoln and Other Poems," p. 49,

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 28 -- William Morris

They sing of the golden Sigurd, and the face without a foe,
And the lowly man exalted, and the mighty brought alow;
And they say, when the sun of summer shall come aback to the land,
It shall shine on the fields of the tiller that fears no heavy hand;
That the sheaf shall be for the plougher and the loaf for him that sowed
Through every furrowed acre where the son of Sigurd rode.

—William Morris, "Story of Sigurd, the Volsung," Book III, p. 203.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 27 -- Gregory VII

Nature gave all things in common for the use of all.

—Gregory VII. (Hildebrand).

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 26 -- Richard Hovey

All men free, and the earth for all to hold,
All men free from crime and the curse of gold;
All men free and bold as the free are bold.

—Richard Hovey, Unpublished Poem.

Taxi Medallions and Rent-Seeking

Quite belatedly, I found an interesting article on Taxi Medallions and Rent-Seeking.  I particularly like the juxtaposition of the sidebar and the article's primary content; read the sidebar first.  

Why did I include in the "categories" for this post "all benefits go to the landholder"?  Because a taxi medallion is a privilege, which, in classical economics, is another form of "land."  Read the sidebar!

There is an easy solution: auction off those privileges for limited periods of time.  Lather, rinse, repeat! 

The sidebar quotes Adam Smith "... the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce," which leads me to think about Henry George's axiom that

"The fundamental principle of human action — the law that is to political economy what the law of gravitation is to physics — is that men seek to gratify their desires with the least exertion." [Progress & Poverty Book III, Chapter 6 — The Laws of Distribution: Wages and the Law of Wages]

One quote from the body of the article:

Studies of economic losses due to rent-seeking and the resulting monopolies have produced figures ranging from 3 to 12 percentage points of national output for the US.

and another:

All of these are possible reasons why the city of Milwaukee might want to limit the number of cab permits, but they do not imply that the existing owners must have a permanent right to them.

The city could simply auction 321 licences every year or two and capture all of the economic rents for itself. Another argument is that a permit acts as a pension for drivers that would otherwise not have a business they could sell on retirement. But that is true only for the first, lucky generation of owners.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 25 -- Ruskin

I should have thought the question about raising rents had been, to your own knowledge, enough answered by me. I have in several, if not in many places, declared the entire system of rent-paying to be an abomination and wickedness of the foulest kind, and have only ceased insisting on that fact of late years, because I would not be counted among the promoters of mob violence. The future, not only of England, but of Christendom, must issue in abolition of rents, but whether with confusion or slaughter, or by action of noble and resolute men in the rising generation of England and her colonies, remains to be decided. I fear the worst, and that soon.

—Ruskin, letter written Dec. 11, 1886.

Louis F. Post on Laissez faire (1909)

I'm skimming Louis Post's book "Social Service" (1909) and came across a couple of elegant paragraphs about Laissez faire.

Doesn't unrestricted competition mean to let everybody alone? That depends upon what you mean by letting alone. It does not mean to let everybody or anybody alone to interfere with production, with rendering service, with industry. Such interferences, whether by government or by highwaymen, are precisely what ought to be stopped in the interest of unrestricted competition. Unrestricted competition does mean that everybody should be let alone in production, in trade, in service, in usefulness to his fellows, in making the world better and richer, and in securing a fair distribution of service among those who render service.

Truly enough, "laissez faire" is the word — "let alone," that is the watchword of competition. But it isn't all of it. As the old democratic economists of France put it — those preceptors of Adam Smith — it was "laissez faire, laissez aller." Now, how would you translate that, Doctor? Don't you think that George's free translation of "a fair field and no favor" will do? Or we might make it "a square deal and no odds," or best of all, maybe, "equal rights and no privileges."

There is no competition in the policy of "let alone," unless you abolish privileges. But with equal rights and no privileges, can you imagine anything fairer or squarer or juster in industry, in trade, in social service, than the policy of "let alone"? This doesn't mean a "struggle for existence and survival of the fittest" in the sense of survival of the strong at the expense of the weak, nor even of survival of the more productive at the expense of the less productive. It means fair distribution in proportion to production. It means that he who renders the most and the best service in his specialty shall get the most and the best service from other specializers, while those who render the least and the poorest shall nevertheless get the equivalent of what they do render. And it leaves the decision to those who in equal freedom make the deal for the service.

Competition is the natural regulator of the law of the line of least resistance. Without such regulation that law might stimulate the strongest — not the strongest in rendering service, but the strongest in extorting service — to get service without giving an equivalent service of his own. There is your savage "tooth and claw" condition, Doctor. But under free competition this would be impossible, for free competition restrains the individual desires of each by the opposition of the individual desires of others. In other words, competition tends to produce an equilibrium of the self-serving impulse at the most useful level of social service.

It is a word of confusing connotations, this word "competition," as are all living words; and it may not be the best word for conveying my idea. But I can't manufacture words, Doctor. All I can do is to make unto myself a definition, and always to use my word in that sense; and all I can ask you to do is to adopt my definitions when you try to understand my discourse.

Though competition may not be quite synonymous with natural co-operation, it is closely related to it, and in such a manner as to justify me, I think, in characterizing it as the life principle of natural co-operation.

Monopoly, on the other hand, whether its purpose be malevolent or benevolent, is the death principle of natural co-operation.

So it seems to me that you will grasp the significance of competition best by contrasting it with monopoly.

To sum it all up, there are only two ways of regulating co-operative service, that social service which springs from individual desires for selfservice. One way is by monopoly; the other is by free competition. Monopoly is pathological, and socially destructive; competition is natural, and socially creative.

Ed Dodson's excellent library resides on the website The School of Cooperative Individualism

Louis F. Post was editor of Henry George's weekly newspaper, The Standard, for a year or so, and went on to edit The Public for a number of years, and then became an Assistant Secretary of Labor in Woodrow Wilson's administration.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 24 -- Seton

They had so long held the Swamp and felt it to be their very own in every part and suburb, . . . that they would have resented the appearance of another rabbit even about the adjoining barnyard. Their claim, that of long, successful occupancy, was exactly the same as that by which most nations hold their land, and it would be hard to find a better right.

—Ernest Thompson Seton, "Wild Animals I Have Known."
"Raggylug," Chapter VIII.

1909's Dangerous Subversive; Rents and Davos; the Skivers and Shirkers

"We are being parasitised from above, not below, and the tax system should reflect this."

I'm going to take the liberty of quoting someone's blog post in full. The author is Richard Murphy, and the post is found at http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2013/01/22/its-time-to-increase-the-tax-on-unearned-income-its-so-glaringly-obviously-true-why-will-no-one-say-it/

It’s time to increase the tax on unearned income. It’s so glaringly obviously true why will no one say it?

Jan 22, 2013 

George Monbiot has an excellent article on tax in the Guardian this morning. At its core is an argument for land value taxation, which he explains has long had powerful support. As he puts it:

In 1909 a dangerous subversive explained the issue thus. “Roads are made, streets are made, services are improved, electric light turns night into day, water is brought from reservoirs a hundred miles off in the mountains -– and all the while the landlord sits still. Every one of those improvements is effected by the labour and cost of other people and the taxpayers. To not one of those improvements does the land monopolist, as a land monopolist, contribute, and yet by every one of them the value of his land is enhanced. He renders no service to the community, he contributes nothing to the general welfare, he contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived … the unearned increment on the land is reaped by the land monopolist in exact proportion, not to the service, but to the disservice done.”

Who was this firebrand? Winston Churchill. As Churchill, Adam Smith and many others have pointed out, those who own the land skim wealth from everyone else, without exertion or enterprise. They “levy a toll upon all other forms of wealth and every form of industry”. A land value tax would recoup this toll.

What Churchill was more broadly describing was the concept of economic rents. So is Aditya Chakrabortty in the Guardin this morning when he says with reference to the philosophy of Davos:

[W]hat’s wrong with the argument the Terry Leahys and the Bob Diamonds make for their extreme wealth? Look, the line runs, we work bloody hard for it; we’re worth it. And it’s true: unlike previous generations of the ultra-wealthy, many of the modern super-rich work for a living, in running major businesses or in finance (although the Davos guestlist still includes plenty of sheikhs and royals). But that doesn’t mean they truly earn the millions they claim.

Take a look at who’s in the Davos set. Last spring, two American academics, Jon Bakija and Brad Helm, and a US Treasury official, Adam Cole, published the most comprehensive analysis yet of the richest 0.1% earners, based on tax returns. Of these top dogs, nearly two in three were top corporate executives and bankers. And the story in both those professions has not been of brilliant returns to shareholders or vast improvements for society, but of wealth extraction and lobbying politicians, Davos-style. In particular, the tale of modern high-finance is of generating transactions, whether in corporate mergers or sub-prime mortgages and then skimming off some of the cash.

That’s extracting rent in exactly the same way that the property owner does. Economically the logic is the same. This is all unearned income, and we should not be granting it favours which increase the divisions and stresses in society; we should be taxing it.

That means we need land value taxation for sure, but we need progressive income taxation, capital gains tax at the same rate as income tax and enforceable corporation tax too if these rents are to be collected. And then there’s the need for reform of inheritance tax.

I really must get round to writing the Joy of Tax. It is next on my list.

 

Another post on the subject is at http://taxjustice.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-skivers-and-shirkers-are-economic.html

The skivers and shirkers are the economic rent extractors

From the UK's Guardian newspaper:

"This is where the debate about workers and shirkers, strivers and skivers should have led. The skivers and shirkers sucking the money out of your pockets are not the recipients of social security demonised by the Daily Mail and the Conservative party, the overwhelming majority of whom are honest claimants. We are being parasitised from above, not below, and the tax system should reflect this."

Although this is a UK-focused story, it has international relevance. As we've noted several times before, Land Value Tax is an essential element of any good tax mix. It's progressive, it doesn't damage productivity, and it curbs the abusive practice of economic rent extraction. The article has a particular opinion:

"It's not really a tax. It's a return to the public of the benefits we have donated to the landlords. When land rises in value, the government and the people deliver a great unearned gift to those who happen to own it."

What's not to like?

See also http://www.newstatesman.com/economics/2013/01/whats-justification-land-value-tax

George Montbiot's article is titled "A Telling Silence."  It is on his blog, with footnotes, at http://www.monbiot.com/2013/01/21/a-telling-silence/  A few excerpts follow, but I encourage you to read the whole piece, which follows.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 23 -- Shakespeare

Cloten. Why tribute? Why should we pay tribute? If Caesar can hide the sun from us with a blanket, or put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute for light.

—Shakspere, "Cymbeline," Act III, Scene 1.

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 21 -- St. Augustine

God has made the rich and the poor of the same clay and one earth bears them both. It is through emperors and kings of the world that God gives the human law of the human race. Take away the law of the emperors and who shall dare to say, "This villa is mine?"

—St. Augustine.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 20 -- Herodotus

They said also that this king divided the country amongst all the Egyptians and from thence he drew his revenues, having required them to pay a fixed tax every year.

—Herodotus, Euterpe, II, 109.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 19 -- Montesquieu

The founders of these republics had made an equal division of the lands. That alone constituted a strong people, — that is to say, a well-regulated society.

—Montesquieu, "Essay on Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans."

Lincoln and George on Labor and Capital

The current issue of the Georgist News ends with these two quotes:

“Capital is a result of labor, and is used by labor to assist it in further production. Labor is the active and initial force, and labor is therefore the employer of capital.”

~Henry George

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

~Abraham Lincoln

 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 18 -- Plutarch

On a sudden the commonalty rose one and all, and encouraging each other, they left the city, and withdrew to the hill not called Sacred, near the river Anio, but without committing any violence, or other act of sedition. Only as they went along, they loudly complained, that it was now a great while since the rich had driven them from their habitations; that Italy would anywhere supply them with air and water and a place of burial; and that Rome, if they stayed in it, would afford them no other privilege, unless it were to bleed and die for their wealthy oppressors.

—Plutarch, "Coriolanus."

Land ownership in The Little Prince

A friend sent me this:

"How is it possible for one to own the stars?"
"To whom do they belong?" the businessman retorted, peevishly.
"I don't know. To nobody."
"Then they belong to me, because I was the first person to think of it."
"Is that all that is necessary?"
"Certainly. When you find a diamond that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you discover 
an island that belongs to nobody, it is yours. When you get an idea before any one else, you 
take out a patent on it: it is yours. So with me: I own the stars, because nobody else before 
me ever thought of owning them."

— Antoine de Saint Exupéry, The Little Prince (1945)

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 17 -- Cobden

The fate of empires, and the fortunes of their peoples, depend upon the condition of the proprietorship of land to an extent which is not at all understood in this country. We are a servile, aristocracy-loving, lord-ridden people, who regard the land with as much reverence as we still do the peerage and the baronetage. Not only have not nineteen-twentieths of us any share in the soil, but we have not presumed to think that we are worthy to possess a few acres of mother earth.

—Richard Cobden, Letter to Mr. Kay.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 16 -- Proudhon

The monopoly of the natural resources, principal among which is land, causing rent, and the monopoly of exchange, causing interest, are at the bottom of all the misery and wretchedness of humanity.

—Proudhon.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 15 -- Allen

... the common priestly doctrine that the earth is the landlord's and the fulness thereof.

—Grant Allen, "The British Barbarians," Chap. IV, p. 119.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 14 -- Rousseau

He who eats in idleness what he himself has not earned, steals; and the landholder whom the State pays for doing nothing does not differ from a brigand who lives at the expense of travelers.

— Rousseau.

Should We Tax People for Being Annoying? - NYTimes.com

Should We Tax People for Being Annoying? - NYTimes.com.

Deep thoughts this week: 

1. There are a lot of living costs that we don't pay for. 

2. A higher gas tax could make the economy more efficient. 

3. And so could taxes for all kinds of things. 

4. But where do you draw the line?

Adam Davidson is asking some good questions here.  Henry George provided some good answers to those questions.  I recommend starting with "Social Problems" and then progressing to "Progress and Poverty."

Basic Principles of Ground Lease Agreements – Yes, a Contract!

Here are the opening paragraphs of a recent article about the complexities of Ground Lease contracts.  I commend the entire article to your attention.  It helps flesh out why and how the entire FIRE sector -- Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (as well as their attorneys) --  is receiving such a large share of the profits produced by the productive sectors of the economy.  The owner of land, and the entities which lend on land, and insure the buildings and the revenue flow, all reap significant shares of what the tenants labor to create.   Modern sharecropping.  And the recipients of the ground rent get to parade as self-made men, people of awesome foresight and wisdom -- and even philanthropists (think Brooke Astor, the Fishers, and others in your own community) when they donate a small share back to a charity!  As you read this, think both of Manhattan land and of land in your community's central business district, and along its major roads.  (Location, location, location!)

If one wonders why (true) small business struggles, one might consider the complexity and expense of their ground leases, and contrast that with the Georgist alternative: that one's taxes would be simply the current rental value of the land, while the value of the building remains one's private property, not subject to taxation or going pouf! at the end of a ground lease.

The land lord is "supplying" something he didn't create.  We ought to ease him out.  Land value taxation is the obvious tool for reducing, and -- slowly or not -- eliminating, his "take" on those who do create.  Think what it would mean if working people had that spending power, instead of the lords of the land.

All that land rent could be used to fund our community's needs, instead of lining the pockets of a few very "lucky" -- privileged -- duckies.  (The analogies to chattel slavery are not a long stretch, once one starts to think about it.  We should all own ourselves, and reap the fruits of our own labors.)

Basic Principles of Ground Lease Agreements – Yes, a Contract!.

PUBLISHED: JANUARY 7, 2013  

A lease is a lease is a lease – or so you may think. Yes, real property leases grant an estate in land to a tenant for a period of time. And yes, the tenant pays for that right of possession. But the action in a lease isn’t in the conveyance provisions; it’s in the contract provisions. Multiply out the rent and other annual monetary obligations by the length of the lease term (in years), and you’ll see that it might be (and often is) a big dollar contract. Even more important, unlike the vast majority of contracts whose obligations are satisfied in days or weeks, a lease contract goes unfulfilled for 50, 75, “99,” and even 500 years. That takes it beyond the life of the parties involved in its creation, and the future brings surprises. Neither Nostradamus nor Jules Verne got everything right. 

Why a Ground Lease? 

If a tenant has to build its own building (as is often the case), and has all of the burdens of ownership, why would it lease a property knowing that at the end of the lease term it has nothing left to show for its money and efforts? There are a number of common reasons, principal among them is that the owner won’t sell the land and the tenant has no alternative. 

Real property often carries a long term unrealized gain, waiting to be taxed upon its sale. 

Not every landowner is interested in making further active real property investments. This makes a like kind exchange unappealing. 

Ground leasing the same land keeps ownership in the family. At the owner’s death, because of the current estate tax “stepped up basis” arrangement, the built in gain may never be taxed.

continue reading

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 13 -- Arnold

The landlord is recognized as a costly anachronism, whose moral claim, even to compensation for expropriation, is constantly getting weaker.

—Matthew Arnold, quoted in London Daily News.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 12 -- Cushman

The hospitals (of England) are full of the ancient. . . . The almshouses are filled with old laborers. Many there are who get their living with bearing burdens, but more are fain to burden the land with their whole bodies. Neither come these straits upon men always through intemperance, ill-husbandry, indiscretion, etc.; but even the most wise, sober and discreet men go often to the wall when they have done their best. . . The rent-taker lives on the sweet morsels, but the rent-payer eats a dry crust often with watery eyes.

—Robert Cushman, Plymouth, 1621, in Young's "Chronicles of the Pilgrims."

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 11 -- Hilton

We are all freeholders; the rent day doth not trouble us.

—Letter of William Hilton, one of the "pilgrim fathers," from
Plymouth, 1621, in Young's "Chronicles of the Pilgrims."

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 10 -- O'Reilly

No longer Merrie England; now it meant
The payers and the takers of the rent.

—John Boyle O'Reilly, "The Pilgrim Fathers."

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 9 -- Rousseau

As soon as I see landed property established, then I see unequal fortunes, and from these unequal fortunes must there not necessarily result different and opposed interests, all the vices of riches, all the vices of poverty, the brutalisation, the corruption of civil manners?

—Jean Jacques Rousseau, "Douies sur L'Otdre Naturel."

Leo Foley - a society we can believe in

I'd like to share with you a website I really like, that of Leo Foley, in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia --

Check out, in particular, his FAQ, here.

Leo Foley - a society we can believe in.

I want to live in a just society - a society where we, the people, are recognised as the rightful owners of natural resources; where we all feel a shared ownership of the earth. Such a simple proposition has profound implications. As co-owners, we would be entitled to a dividend from those natural resources. 

 That would provide a basic income for every person, allowing us the freedom to choose a fulfilling career, rather than be forced to accept wage-slave jobs to meet our debt-ridden commitments. True freedom implies the right to choose our work, our interests and where we live. 

If we, as owners, had a say in the management of our natural resources, most likely we would not consent to the world as it is. 

 In a democratic society, where the people own the natural resources, in common, we would recognise commons property rights in our accounting. We would not allow loss of biodiversity, pollution of our streams and rivers, high rates of mineral depletion (including fossil fuels), loss of our starscape every night of the year to light pollution – or, at least, we would not allow these things beyond what is acceptable to the people.

Thomas Shearman: The Coming Billionaire (1891)

When there is even one billionaire, there will be several half-billionaires and many hundred-millionaires.  The fact will be an indication of a tremendous concentration of wealth, and of the dwindling proportion of wealth held by the farmers and wage-earners of this country.  The billionaire will bring an army of paupers in his train.  Possibly the actual average wealth of farmers and mechanics then may be a little greater than it is now.  Optimists of that day may assure them that they are richer, by ten dollars each, than their ancestors were; and therefore that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.  But the discontent of the masses, under a system which gives to one man a larger amount of wealth than can ever be attained by a million of his fellow citizens who are fully his equals in skill and merit and far his superiors in industry, is certain to be great and ever increasing.  Indeed, universal experience demonstrates that discontent among the masses is far greater than when the weight of oppression is somewhat diminished than it was before.

...

The vast majority of any community must always have incomes so small that they cannot help spending three fourths of what they receive.  But the small minority of large property-owners do not need to spend one eighth of their incomes, and as a rule they do not spend one half.  Looking at the subject with reference to accumulated wealth, the man who is worth $1,000 usually spends at least $500 a year on the support of his family, while the man who is worth $1,000,000 rarely spends $50,000.  Indirect taxation, therefore, obviously bears at least ten times as heavily upon the former as upon the latter.  Under absolutely direct taxation, no poor man would ever pay a larger share than a rich man, and, indeed, most of the working classes would pay no taxes at all; because the collection of direct taxes from them would be too laborious and expensive to be maintained. 

...

Direct taxation, on a large scale, is near at hand.  The men who bought and paid for the present Congress can now choose what its form shall be.  They can have a general income tax, or they can have something less open to fraud, less inquisitorial in its nature, less oppressive upon honest men, and offering no premium to perjury.  But they know nothing about the science of taxation, and they do not care to learn; so that the whole matter will be left over to the new Congress, and a general income tax, objectionable as it is, seems most likely to be adopted. 

The Coming Billionaire

The Forum, January, 1891, page 546-557

In the FORUM for November, 1889, the question was asked, "Who owns the United States?" and reasons were given for the belief that one half of all the national wealth is owned by 40,000 families and that three fourths of it is in the possession of fewer than 250,000 families.  These estimates were based in part upon official tax returns, but in part, also upon private information as to the wealth of 70 estates, specifically named, each estimated to be worth more than $20,000,000 and averaging $37,500,000.  The correctness of these statistics, as well as that of the inferences drawn from them, has been somewhat bitterly denied.  Hostile critics have assumed that the estimates of individual wealth were based entirely upon newspaper reports; and many newspaper editors, acting presumably upon their own experience, have unhesitatingly declared that such statistics are necessarily worthless.

But not one tenth of these names were given upon the authority of newspaper estimates, while a large majority were given upon very trustworthy private information.  It has been said that no one can tell what a man's wealth amounts to without access to his books, which, it has been assumed, is impossible.  In several instances, however, the information came from persons who had access to the necessary books or had been permitted to inspect the securities; in some cases it was obtained from tax returns; and in other cases it was taken from the oral or written statements of the owners themselves.  For example, one gentleman, whose wealth was set down at $100,000,000 had actually exhibited $75,000,000 in securities, and had testified in a court of law to the possession of $10,000,000 more of one kind, all encumbered.  During the year which has now elapsed, not one tenth of these names have been specified by any one as erroneously entered upon the list or as seriously overrated, and in only three instances has any probable error been established.  These names might be omitted, and their places might be supplied by others of the twenty million grade.  Errors of understatement have been discovered which largely counterbalance all overstatements.  The least that can be said is that there are 70 American estates that average $35,000,000 each, not including Trinity Church, which perhaps should not be classed with strictly individual owners.  During the year, by the consolidation of two estates, one individual has become worth at least $200,000,000.  Two brothers, whose property is held as a unit, together own even a larger amount than this.  Some great estates have been divided up by inheritance, but others have been divided up by inheritance, but others have been still more concentrated by that means.

The Unequal State of America: A Reuters series

The Unequal State of America: A Reuters series.

Government's role in income inequality in the U. S.

Redistributing Up

The federal government has emerged as one of the most potent factors behind the rise in income inequality in the United States - especially in the nation’s capital. Income is increasingly being redistributed up, not just down, through tax cuts and to a growing upper class of contractors, lobbyists and lawyers.

READ MORE

 

The Decline of the "Great Equalizer"

Massachusetts, home to America’s best schools and best-educated workforce, has seen income inequality soar. Why? The poor are losing an academic arms race with the rich. READ MORE

 

The Undeserving Poor

The American welfare state is bigger than ever, but so are the ranks of the poor. As the U.S. focuses on those deemed most worthy, millions of adults get squeezed. That is clear in Indiana, which has seen a surge in poverty. READ MORE

Greece’s Rotten Oligarchy - NYTimes.com

Greece’s Rotten Oligarchy - NYTimes.com.

DEMOCRACY is like a bicycle: if you don’t keep pedaling, you fall. Unfortunately, the bicycle of Greek democracy has long been broken. After the military junta collapsed in 1974, Greece created only a hybrid, diluted form of democracy. You can vote, belong to a party and protest. In essence, however, a small clique exercises all meaningful political power. 

For all that has been said about the Greek crisis, much has been left unsaid. The crisis has become a battleground of interests and ideologies. At stake is the role of the public sector and the welfare state. Yes, in Greece we have a dysfunctional public sector; for the past 40 years the ruling parties handed out government jobs to their supporters, regardless of their qualifications. 

But the real problem with the public sector is the tiny elite of business people who live off the Greek state while passing themselves off as “entrepreneurs.” They bribe politicians to get fat government contracts, usually at inflated prices. They also own many of the country’s media outlets, and thus manage to ensure that their actions are clothed in silence. Sometimes they’ll even buy a soccer team in order to drum up popular support and shield their crimes behind popular protection, as the drug lord Pablo Escobar did in Colombia, and as the paramilitary leader Arkan did in Serbia. 

In 2011, Evangelos Venizelos, who was then the finance minister and is now the leader of the socialist party, Pasok, instituted a new property-tax law. But for properties larger than 2,000 square meters — about 21,000 square feet — the tax was reduced by 60 percent. Mr. Venizelos thus carved out a big exemption for the only people who could afford to pay the tax: the rich. (Mr. Venizelos is also the man responsible for a law granting broad immunity to government ministers.)

It seems to me that I also heard that the property tax law only applied to land with buildings on it -- it was collected via electric utility bills!  Thus, vacant land, even in choice locations, seemed to be excluded.

How to kill an economy!

Such shenanigans have gone on for decades. The public is deprived of real information, as television stations, newspapers and online news sites are controlled by the economic and political elite.

The article goes on to detail other corrupt things, and then concludes:

This is all unfolding at a time when Greece is walking a tightrope above the abyss of bankruptcy, while the coalition government is instituting new taxes on the lower classes. Half of young Greeks are unemployed. The economy is shrinking at an annual rate of 6.9 percent. People are scrounging for food. And a neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn, is on the rise, exploiting the resentment and rage toward the ruling class.

The Greek people must remount their bicycle of democracy by demanding an end to deception and corruption. Journalists need to resist manipulation and rediscover their journalistic duties. And the government should revive Greece’s ancient democratic heritage — instead of killing the messenger.

Companies Exploit Tax Break for Asset Exchanges, Trial Evidence Shows - NYTimes.com

Companies Exploit Tax Break for Asset Exchanges, Trial Evidence Shows - NYTimes.com.

It began more than 90 years ago as a small tax break intended to help family farmers who wanted to swap horses and land. Farmers who sold property, livestock or equipment were allowed to avoid paying capital gains taxes, as long as they used the proceeds to replace or upgrade their assets.

Over the years, however, as the rules were loosened, the practice of exchanging one asset for another without incurring taxes spread to everyone from commercial real estate developers and art collectors to major corporations. It provides subsidies for rental truck fleets and investment property, vacation homes, oil wells and thoroughbred racehorses, and diverts billions of dollars in potential tax revenue from the Treasury each year.

...

The tax break also exposes one of the greatest vulnerabilities of the United States tax system: it depends on voluntary compliance. The I.R.S. staff is so outnumbered by tax lawyers and accounting departments at major corporations that there is often little to prevent taxpayers from taking a freewheeling approach to interpreting and administering the rules. 

What’s more, the tax break is one of so many that it tends to escape attention. The independent Simpson-Bowles deficit commission appointed by Mr. Obama in 2010 raised the possibility of eliminating it and other tax expenditures, however, and some budget experts argue that the program should be severely limited or repealed. 

Some financial planners and economists say that the tax break even favors real estate investors unfairly by allowing them to defer capital gains taxes that those who invest in securities and other ventures have to pay. And although it was originally intended to help farmers, some economists and lawmakers in agricultural areas say it has perversely contributed to suburban sprawl and the spiraling cost of farmland. Because it allows farmers to avoid capital gains taxes on land swaps, the tax break provides an incentive to sell farmland coveted by developers and buy property in less desirable and more remote areas.

...

Even as the debate over the tax break continues, there is a deep conviction in the real estate business that it is justified. Advocates for the real estate industry say that a large majority of transactions are conducted in strict compliance with I.R.S. regulations. Because the asset exchanges spur investment and help create jobs, industry officials say they would strenuously oppose any effort to end them.

“Historically, these exchanges are a very important consideration for a very important segment of the economy,” said Jeffrey D. DeBoer, chief executive of the Real Estate Roundtable. “I have no reason to believe that Congress won’t ultimately recognize that.”

A very important segment of the economy, or a very important segment of the financing of political campaigns?  Land speculation doesn't create jobs for ordinary working people.  Tax accountants, perhaps.  Banks, perhaps. But land speculation is inert -- if what we want are jobs and widespread prosperity.   

Recall that capital doesn't appreciate.  Buildings and equipment, even with the best of maintenance, decline in value.  What appreciates is land and natural resources -- and they rise in value for reasons which have nothing to do with the fellow, or corporation, who owns them.  He is passive, inert -- and rent-seeking.  We ought not to reward or even permit it.  We can correct it through a better designed tax system.

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 Menace of Plutocracy -- an 1889 Thomas Shearman speech

Thomas G. Shearman was a founding partner of Shearman & Sterling and one of America's finest legal minds in the 19th century.  This complements several other articles -- a 3-part series entitled "The Distribution of Wealth" which appeared in The Standard late in 1887, "Henry George's Mistakes" (September, 1889), and "The Owners of the United States" which appeared in The Forum in November, 1889.

from "The Public," October 6, 1900 

THE MENACE OF PLUTOCRACY.

An extract from an address delivered by the late Thomas G. Shearman at Portland, Ore., June 17, 1889. This address, just as it was taken down by the stenographer at the time, was reproduced In the September (1900) number of "Why?", an excellent little periodical published by Frank Vierth at Cedar Rapids, Ia. As the editor of "Why?" says: "The lapse of nearly 12 years gives the speech added interest and significance."

Some cause has been at work during the last 25 or 30 years, which has resulted in a tremendous widening of the social chasm between the rich and poor. Some cause has, within the recollection probably of the majority of those who are present, entirely transformed the face of American society. Our old equality is gone. So far from being the most equal people on the face of the earth, as we once boasted that we were, ours is the most unequal of civilized nations. You talk about wealth of the British aristocracy, and about the poverty of the British poor. There is not in the whole of Great Britain and Ireland so striking a contrast, so wide a chasm between the rich and the poor, as there is in these United. States of America. There is no man in the whole of Great Britain and Ireland who is as wealthy as one of some half a dozen gentlemen who could be named in this country; and there are few there who are poorer than some who could be found in this country. It is true, I think, even yet, that there is a larger number of the extremely poor in Great Britain and Ireland than there is in this country. Haw long that will remain true it is difficult to say; but it is unquestionably not true that there is any greater mass of riches concentrated in a few hands in any country than in this.

Whereas, 40 years ago a man worth $100,000 was, even in our great city of New York, an object of remark and envy, such a man is now utterly obscure and unnoticed, and is considered to have laid merely the beginnings of a very moderate part of the capital which would be necessary for him to make a living.

Whereas, 40 years ago, there was but one man in the United States who was supposed to be worth more than $5,000,000, there are several Astors now, each of whom is generally reputed to be worth at least $50,000,000. There are probably ten times as many men today who are worth $20,000,000 as there were 40 years ago who were worth $1,000,000; and there are now several men, who are worth over $100,000,000 each.

This state of things is developing more and more rapidly. In every corner are men and women buried in obscurity, until we learn by some accident that they are worth their $10,000,000 or $20,000,000. A single member of a banking firm in, the city of Philadelphia lately died, leaving more than $21,000,000. There are at least four surviving partners in that firm having equal shares with the deceased. Two Philadelphians, of no public fame, recently died, having $22,000,000 each. One lady in my own city of Brooklyn is worth certainly not less than $30,000,000. We see evidences of this enormous accumulation on every side. And, it can be demonstrated with great ease by statistics which are undisputed, that at the present day less than 100,000 persons, constituting as a matter of fact only about one two-hundredth part of our working force, are possessed of incomes which enable them to save about three-fifths of all the wealth that is annually saved in this country. And as wealth is substantially all reproduced within less than 30 years, this means that within 30 years 100,000 persons are destined to own three fifths of the entire wealth of the United States; land, houses, improvements, goods, chattels, personal property of every kind.

Everybody knows that this state of things is undesirable. This enormous amount of wealth concentrated in a few hands brings to them no particular pleasure, no additional comforts, certainly does not bring to them anything like proportionate happiness.

Shearman: The Distribution of Wealth, Part I (1887)

The Distribution of Wealth

by Thomas G. Shearman
The Land and Labor Library

Published weekly, by Henry George,
at the office of The Standard, 25 Ann Street, New York  October 22, 1887
printed in The Standard, October 8, 15 and 22, 1887

Mr. Edward Atkinson is a gentleman of whom I have no disposition to speak in any other terms than those of respect and esteem.  He has done a vast amount of useful work; he is sincerely desirous of promoting the welfare of mankind; he has done much for the dissemination of sound ideas on economic questions, and he is always sincere and earnest.  His weakness is mostly in a too strong conviction of his own infallibility, in the full persuasion that he knows just what needs to be done, how it is to be done and when it must be done, and a consequent peremptory method of disposing of everybody as something very like a fool who does not agree with him upon all these details.  Thus, he has been for many years in favor of free trade, and in former years he strenuously insisted upon the vital importance of reform in that direction.  He has not recanted his opinions; but he has become more interested in other questions, and now he has very little patience with, and indeed, something very like contempt for, men who hold his opinions as to free trade and think that issue more important than the new questions which have recently attracted Mr. Atkinson's mind.

In May last Mr. Atkinson addressed the Boston labor lyceum, ostensibly on the subject of the proposed eight hour law, but really on the question, "How are the profits divided?"  His address, as revised, has but just come into my hands, and it raises some issues which need further consideration and a broader view.  In reviewing its conclusions, it may be as well to accept its statement of facts and statistics without dispute, for it is so evident that Mr. Atkinson has overlooked important elements of the problem, upon his own showing, that it is not worth while to enter into controversy as to the facts or figures.

Mr. Atkinson claims that in $1,100,000 worth of cotton sheeting there is not more than $145,000 profit to capitalists, while $15,000 go in taxes and $940,000 to labor.  He makes no allowance whatever for rent, except perhaps for the rent of the ground upon which the mill stands.  He assumes that 1,400 bales of cotton can be grown upon land which pays no rent and costs nothing to the cotton grower.  Of course he makes no allowance for rent in the cost of supplies, machinery, repairs, freight, etc.  In one place he says that rent does enter into the cost; in another he says that if the landlord is taxed upon his rent he will add the tax to the rent, and so it will enter into the cost; and finally he says that rent amounts to a trifle less than 1% of sales, anyway.  Now the truth is that before this $1,100,000 worth of cotton sheeting can get into the hands of the people there must be paid out of the proceeds rent, or the interest on the cost of the land, which is the same thing, on the land where the cotton is grown, on which the supplies are manufactured, on which the railroad is laid, on which the repairs are done, on which the sheeting mill is situated, on which the great stores where the sheetings are sold stand, and, finally, on which the residences of the 3,400 persons said to be engaged in producing these goods also stand.  All this is plainly stated in Mr. Atkinson's "Distribution of Products."  We will leave Mr. Atkinson to reckon the amount of these items, simply remarking that upon his own estimates the single item of the rent of the stores in which the goods are sold would add $100,000 to their cost, and that, making the most moderate allowance for the rent of the other land used in this work of production, it is obvious that rent alone would far exceed the whole sum Mr. Atkinson has allowed to go to compensation for capital.

In the next place, Mr. Atkinson has fallen, for the moment, into the old idea, long ago exploded by Adam Smith, but still current among unthinking people, that what is spent by the rich in their personal luxuries is as truly employed for the general good as that which is spent in productive enterprise.  He seeks to reduce the $145,000 appropriated by capital by showing that much of this is spent in employing labor.  He might just as well include the whole of it, because even the money which he charges to waste, as spent on champagne, etc., is all paid out for labor of some kind. The true rule is that nothing should be charged to labor except that which is expended usefully and so as to promote reproduction.  A lord who employs a hundred servants to wait upon his idle and useless person, not only wastes the money which he pays to them, but also wastes their time and skill in occupations which neither help him nor them to serve mankind any better than they would have done before.  Every dollar thus spent is devoted to waste, not to useful labor.

Shearman: The Distribution of Wealth, Part II (1887)

THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH
BY THOMAS G. SHEARMAN.

II.

An Irish landlord, writing to the London Times, called particular attention to the fact that, in case all the landlords should be expelled, the whole of Ireland, outside of the large towns, would be left without a single person whose annual income would exceed $1,500. To the wealthy landlord who owns the Times, this appalling fact seems to afford such conclusive proof of the desolation and misery which would follow home rule that he deems it superfluous to add a word of comment. He considers it quite enough to say that no such state of things exists in any civilised country. That it should be eventually brought about in Ireland, he evidently believes, must be considered by every sane man as one of the most frightful disasters which could befall the human race.

I am writing in Germany, the country from which have proceeded the most important additions to the intellectual wealth of the world during the last fifty years. The man who knows nothing of the contributions made to history, to theology, to science, whether abstract or applied, by German students, knows practically nothing at all. What have been the income of the men who have thus enriched the world! Rarely so much as $1,500; generally not half that amount. Some of the world-famous German scholars accomplished their great achievements on an income of less than $600 a year.

New England developed a marvelous degree of intellectual activity in the colonial period of our history, though confined within a narrow circle. But that was a period of small incomes and very little accumulated wealth; nor did the few wealthy men contribute anything of importance to the intellectual or moral development of the people. What have the wealthy Irish landlords done for the development of the Irish people in religion, morality or intellect? What contribution has any wealthy Irish landlord ever made to literature, science, art or high thought of any kind? What benefit have these men of wealth conferred upon any part of the world in any direction? They have just held a solemn meeting to answer these questions, and their own testimony affords the best evidence against them. They claim to have advised their tenants to improve their stock, to introduce better methods of cultivation and to qualify themselves generally to pay higher rents, while they themselves have set excellent examples to their inferiors by taking good care of themselves.

Many years ago a practical joker inserted an advertisement in a daily paper to the following effect: "Wanted, by a young gentleman of good birth and breeding, board in a respectable family, where his Christian example would be considered sufficient compensation for his board." The Irish landlords do not advertise, but they get precisely that for which the young man advertised in vain. Their Christian example, however, has been chiefly directed toward hunting, horse racing and hard drinking. Certainly, down to a period less than fifty years ago, all accounts of Ireland agreed in this; and except that the drinking is conducted with more moderation, there seems no reason to believe that there has been any change.

Shearman: The Distribution of Wealth, Part III (1887)

This, the third and final instalment, appeared in The Standard, October 22, 1887:

THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.

BY THOMAS G. SHEARMAN.

III

 

Having reached the conclusion that indirect, or as the writer first called it five years ago, "crooked" taxation is certain to produce enormous inequality of wealth, that it is palpably and indisputably unjust, and that it inevitably leads to that worst form of inequality which involves the perpetual ownership of more than half of the wealth of a country by less than the one-hundredth part of its inhabitants, we are prepared to take up the next and final question in our series. 

What can be done to effect a more equal distribution of wealth, without diminishing its production?

Again let us waive the discussion of rent. Having purposely avoided all consideration of that tender subject, we will not take it up just now. Assuming that rent can rightfully be private property, and that the community is not to claim it, simply as rent — conceding all that the champions of private property in land claim — let us inquire what, nevertheless, remains to be done and ought to be done, in order to prevent the unjust use of government to the injury of the poor, and to check the artificial tendency toward the monopoly of wealth by a hundredth part of the population.

That 5,000 acre estate in Great Britain: Highclere

A few snippets from the season premier of Downton Abbey and a preliminary program about the estate where it is filmed. 

Like many others, I'm a fan of the Downton Abbey series.  I think a lot about the economics of maintaining an estate that size -- how many people are involved -- how many breadwinners employed, and for whose benefit -- what the products are, what the opportunities are for local residents to live without being either employees or tenants, and what percentage of their annual income goes to support the owners of the land.  Large spreads of land certainly reduce the pool of employers.

5,000 acres is 7.8 square miles.  5 times Central Park, I think they said.  That's a circle of 1.57 miles radius.  A long way from one's nearest non-tenant neighbor, even if they live right at one's perimeter!  Small by Texas standards, perhaps, but its location within a reasonable radius of London makes it far more valuable.

It was 20% bigger when the current owner's grandfather owned it.  Taxes "chipped away" at it. (Cui bono?)

The program focuses on the people involved in keeping the castle itself and its immediate grounds going; it doesn't mention the tenant farmers.

Watching the program about the Highclere property, I am reminded of a presentation I heard in Newport, Rhode Island, this fall, about the gardeners and property managers of the great estates there.  They seemed to have more employers to choose from, since the typical estate in Newport might be a few acres. 

Ah, there's a Rothschild in the picture!  The wife of the 1890's occupant ... with a dowry.

Against all odds, Highclere survived ... in other words, they didn't need to sell off land to other people?

1500 acres of grazing ... an important source of income for generations ... and oats for the queen's (and others') racehorses. (Do the royals watch Downton Abbey?)

A straight-on view of one side of the castle suggested that one side was about 17 windows wide.  I grew up in a subdivision "colonial-style" home, built about 1963, which was 5 windows wide on its front side. I thought it was huge!

The 3rd season premier:

@14 minutes: "The estate must be a major employer and support the house!"

Mathew: "on the estate, or in the village ... "

  "It's our job to provide employment ..."

investing in the Canadian railroad ...  

Henry George, on intemperance, liquor taxes and poverty

A paragraph from "To Destroy the Rum Power," by Henry George, in the February, 1890, issue of The Arena.  (The full article follows this single eloquent paragraph.) -- 

"Almost universal sobriety," wrote Adam Smith in Kirkaldy, somewhere in the early seventies of the eighteenth century. Writing as the wonderful nineteenth century nears its final decade and in the great metropolis of a mighty nation then unborn, I can say no more, if as much. The temperance question does not stand alone. It is related — nay, it is but a phase, of the great social question. By abolishing liquor taxes and licenses we may drive the "rum power" out of politics, and somewhat, I think, lessen intemperance. Thus we may get rid of an obstacle to the improvement of social conditions and increase the effective force that demands improvement. But without the improvement of social conditions we cannot hope to abolish intemperance. Intemperance today springs mainly from that unjust distribution of wealth which gives to some less and to others more than they have fairly earned. Among the masses it is fed by hard and monotonous toil, or the still more straining and demoralizing search for leave to toil; by overtasked muscles and overstrained nerves, and under-nurtured bodies; by the poverty which makes men afraid to marry and sets little children at work, and crowds families into the rooms of tenement houses; which stints the nobler and brings out the baser qualities; and in full tide of the highest civilization the world has yet seen, robs life of poetry and glory of beauty and joy. Among the classes it finds its victims in those from whom the obligation to exertion has been artificially lifted; who are born to enjoy the results of labor without doing any labor, and in whom the lack of stimulus to healthy exertion causes moral obesity, and consumption without the need of productive work breeds satiety. Intemperance is abnormal. It is the vice of those who are starved and those who are gorged. Free trade in liquor would tend to reduce it, but could not abolish it. But free trade in everything would. I do not mean a sneaking, half-hearted, and half-witted "tariff reform," but that absolute, thorough free trade, which would not only abolish the custom house and the excise, but would do away with every tax on the products of labor and every restriction on the exertion of labor, and would leave everyone free to do whatever did not infringe the ten commandments.

It is worth noting that Frances Willard, a major figure in the temperance movement, published, in 1896, An Up-to-Date Catechism.  She saw the connection between poverty and intemperance, and recognized that the Single Tax could make all the difference in making life better.

Here's George's full article follows (check out the corset analogy!):

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 7 -- Renan

In our society, established upon a very rigorous idea of property, the position of the poor man is horrible; he has literally no place under the sun. There are no flowers, no shade, no grass but for him who possesses the earth. In the East these are the gifts of God, which belong to no man. The proprietor has but a slender privilege; nature is the patrimony of all.

—Ernest Renan, "Life of Jesus," Chapter X.

Hugh Pentecost, on the connection between crime and poverty

This excerpt from an 1890 article in The Arena seems relevant as we look at gun violence and other contemporary problems created by lack of employment and income -- and hope.

It would be far better for society if instead of speculating on the forms of punishment we turned our attention to the means of preventing the crimes for which we punish the offenders. It has been observed that most of the murders occur among the poor people, and upon the top floors of tenement houses; that is to say, among the poorest of the poor. The connection between poverty and the crime of murder, like the connection between poverty and all other crime, is demonstrably close. If we could cure the social disease of poverty, the seeds of crime would be destroyed. The people rarely think of this. They think it is our business to punish crime; but it is our best business to prevent it. Our present organization of society manufactures criminals faster than we can possibly take care of them. Poverty degrades men; it robs them of leisure, which is absolutely necessary for the development of mind, and the proper control of the passions; it keeps the people hungry and fierce; it imbrutes them; it makes Ishmaels of them — their hand is against society as the hand of society is against them. Plant a generation of paupers, and you will reap a crop of criminals.

If we are wise we will turn our attention to the most important problem of this or any age: how to so enrich the people that the temptations to crime will be minified to the last possible degree. The solution of the problem is as simple as it is important. For every millionaire we shall have a thousand tramps; for every monopolist we shall have a hundred burglars; for every woman who lives in idleness upon the fruit of others’ toil, filched from them under the name of interest or rent, we shall have a score of prostitutes; for every vacant land owner and money limiter — the twin man-starvers — we shall have a murderer. One is the seed from which the other grows. Eliminate your monopolists, the king of whom is the owner of vacant land, and your problem of crime is settled. With open opportunities for men to apply their labor to natural wealth productions, tenfold more wealth would be produced and equitably distributed; and with wealth many times multiplied and equitably distributed, a criminal would be more of a curiosity than the original three-toed horse.

If memory serves, Hugh Pentecost was an Episcopal priest, perhaps in Newark.  The title of the article from which these paragraphs come is "The Crime of Capital Punishment."

I like the word "minified."  Maybe there is a useful slogan there: Minify Taxation!  ("To make smaller or less significant; reduce.") We could collect the revenue we need with lower taxes were we to concentrate our taxes on land value, in all its manifestations.  And in the process, we would reduce poverty, reduce the cost of living, reduce wealth concentration, reverse sprawl, naturally create employment and self-employment opportunities, and stabilize our economy.  It seems to me that any one of these goals is worthy, and if this reform would move us closer to any of these goals, it is worth pursuing.  

And, importantly, with less need to rely on a social safety net, spending could be signficantly reduced.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 6 -- Shakespeare

Third Fisherman: Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.

First Fisherman: Why, as men do a land. The great ones eat up the little ones. I can compare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale , 'a plays and tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at last devours them all at a mouthful; such whales have I heard on o' the land, who never leave gaping till they have swallowed the whole parish, church, steeple, bells and all. . . .

Third Fisherman: If the good King Simonides were of my mind, he would purge the land of these drones that rob the bee of her honey.

—Shakspere, "Pericles, Prince of Tyre," Act II, Scene 1.

Bill Batt's testimony at Albany: Think Outside the Box!

Most taxes discourage economic vitality — taxing sales reduces consumption; taxing wages discourages work; taxing interest reduces savings — and so on. There is one exception to the impact of taxation: taxing a base with an inelastic supply. Such taxes engender growth and economic vitality.1 Here the greater the tax the more the economic vitality. Recently Professor Joe Stiglitz has written that

One of the general principles of taxation is that one should tax factors that are inelastic in supply, since there are no adverse supply side effects. Land does not disappear when it is taxed. Henry George, a great progressive of the late nineteenth century, argued, partly on this basis, for a land tax. It is ironic that rather than following this dictum, the United States has been doing just the opposite through its preferential treatment of capital gains.

But it is not just land that faces a low elasticity of supply. It is the case for other depletable natural resources. Subsidies might encourage the early discovery of some resource, but it does not increase the supply of the resource; that is largely a matter of nature. That is why it also makes sense, from an efficiency point of view, to tax natural resource rents at as close to 100% as possible.

Those are the opening paragraphs of Bill's December, 2012, testimony in Albany, New York.  The rest can be found here.  It is 6 pages, and worth your time.

The Earth for All Calendar: a copy on ebay today

An ebay alert for the Crosby "Earth-for-All Calendar" -- which I've had for many years -- finally showed a copy of it (almost 2 years after I got a scan of a copy).  But I'll post it here in case a reader is interested. 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 5 -- Ruskin

Oh, you queens, you queens! Among the hills and happy greenwood of this land of yours, shall the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; and in the cities shall the stones cry out against you, that they are the only pillows where the Son of Man can lay his head?

—Ruskin, "Sesame and Lilies," "Queens' Gardens," Sec. 95.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 4 -- Ingelow

But for this, I say,
And but for selfish getting of the land,
And beggarly entailing it, we two,
Today well fed, well grown, well dressed, well read,
We might have been two horny-handed boors,—
Lean, clumsy, ignorant, and ragged boors,—
Planning for moonlight nights a poaching scheme,
Or soiling our dull souls and consciences
With plans for pilfering a cottage roost.

—Jean Ingelow, "Brothers and a Sermon."

The Earth-for-All Calendar: Undecimber 3 -- Seneca

How long shall we covet and oppress, enlarge our possessions and account that too little which was formerly enough for a nation? . . . A bull contents himself with one meadow, and one forest is enough for a thousand elephants; but the little body of man devours more than all other living creatures.

—Seneca, "Morals." Translation of Walter Clode, Chapter II.