LVTFan's Blog

The Single Tax: An Essay on the Single Tax in 50 Words

All men have equal right to life.

Life depends absolutely upon land.

Therefore all have equal right to land.

Some must occupy more valuable land than others.

Equal right demands that landholders pay the yearly value of land Into a common fund for common purposes.

This is the single tax.
SAMUEL BRAZIER.

in The Public, 1900

The milk in our coconut

This is an editorial from the Leavenworth (KS) Labor News of February 10, 1893.  This newspaper is available on Newspapers.com, and it, along with the Fairhope (AL) Courier, is a wonderful resource.

The Galveston News has an editorial on the “Public Landlord” in which it attempts to show that the figures used by Mr. Thomas G. Shearman as to the total annual land values of the United States are incorrect, and then it proceeds to demolish the single tax idea. That’s the trouble with figure-mongers. What difference does it make whether Mr. Shearman’s figures are correct or not? The milk in our cocoanut lies in the statement that land does not possess in itself those qualities which enable it to be owned by an individual. It is not property, any more than the air, sunlight, or winds of heaven are property and subject to individual ownership.

Mr. Shearman is one of the most valued adherents to the single tax cause. We call him a “Single Taxer Limited.” He favors the single tax because of its simplicity as a fiscal measure.

We have all kinds of people in our camp; one highly valued Single Taxer is Billy Radcliff of Ohio, who goes around with a banjo singing our doctrine. Another is Rabbi Samuel Sale, of St. Louis, an orator whose words and figures of speech remind one of the lofty imagery of the prophet Isaiah. Then there is “Uncle Tom,” the poor workman, who writes with the eloquence, which, as Webster said, “was not taught in schools, but belongs to tho cause, the time and the occasion.”

Henry George, the philosopher; Judge Maguire and Louis F. Post, the lawyers; Dr. McGlynn, the religious teacher, and a countless number of professional men, artisans and common laborers make up our following, and run the entire gamut of human thought and endeavor.

If Thomas G. Shearman, the fiscal advocate of single tax, or Dr. McGlynn, the ethical advocate, or Louis F. Post, the legal advocate, or any other special pleader for our cause raises questions which, to men uninitiated in their special branches of learning seem to be untenable, what matters it?

The men who stand firmly upon the statement that individual ownership in land is the breeder of poverty, of sin and crime, and all the brood of evils which spring from an unjust and unrighteous act, care little whether the annual land values of the United States are seven hundred millions a year, or one million a year, or seven billions a year.

The point is that the annual value of land belongs to the creators of it, namely, to society in the aggregate—to the generation of men now living. The men who are dead have no part or lot in it; neither they nor their heirs who base their claims upon the fact that their ancestors claimed to own the land. When we die our interest in the land ceases and we do not believe that we can pass our title to our children as against the children of landless men who are living in the same generation with us.

If the annual land value be more or less than enough to support the state, what matters it? The value of land, be it great or small, belongs to all men who live on the land. That’s all there is to it.

If this contention can be sustained we need have no fears about other truths not being in harmony with our position. The first thing to do is to establish the truth that land cannot be owned by an individual — is not of a nature which permits it to be owned. After this is done, then the fiscal, ethical, legal, sentimental and utilitarian phases of the situation may be profitably considered and worked out. If our contention can be sustained, then there is a way to harmonize the details. This must be true, or else truth itself is a lie.

If you have time available, consider digging into those two newspapers.  They have a wealth of fascinating material and wisdom.

John Farrell, The Philosophy of the Single Tax, Part VII: Chiefly in Reply

The letter to which this is replying follows the article itself here.

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW: 1883-1930)  Sat 18 Jan 1890  Page 9

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SINGLE TAX.
By J. Farrell

No. VII. CHIEFLY IN REPLY.

Before proceeding to deal finally with the method of what upholders of the single tax claim to be the solution of the great problem which has so long and deeply engaged the thought of mankind, before explaining how the unravelment of the maze is to be effected, I must glance at certain objections raised by Mr. A. G. Yewen in The Daily Telegraph of January 7 against certain of my contentions. These were — that trades-unionism cannot generally avail, under present conditions, to help labor all round to a better share of what it produces; that any gain to organized labor obtained by such means is at the expense of labor not organized; and that socialism, as generally propounded, is apparently both impracticable and unjust.

Touching the first, my ground, clearly set forth in preceding papers, is that land (all the raw material or natural opportunity upon which labor and capital can exert themselves to produce anything) is so monopolized that both labor, the worker and capital, the tool he uses, can only get free access to such avenues of employment as will keep the one alive and reproduce the other. Therefore, any more productive avenues they seek to use take from them such a portion of their product in the shape of rent that they are always practically working at the most unprofitable verge possible.  The rate of wages and interest, I have endeavored to show, is determined wholly by the degree of land monopoly reached in any particular country, or, in other words, by the number of laborers or capitalists seeking to use one particular avenue of production. If these are many rent is high and wages and interest low; if few, the exact reverse is the case. The "standard of comfort" is controlled by this measure of accessibility of productive power to raw material. And while monopoly has the power to prevent production in any degree it may choose I fail to see any possibility of trades-unionism having the general beneficial effect Mr. Yewen claims for it. Monopoly need not yield an inch to allow the increased production from which alone the whole field of labor could receive substantial betterment.

John Farrell, The Philosophy of the Single Tax, Part X: In Conclusion

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney, NSW : 1883 - 1930)  Sat 8 Feb 1890  Page 9

The Philosophy of the Single Tax.
By J. Farrell.

 

X. IN CONCLUSION.

I have endeavored in the course of these articles to explain in a condensed form, and divested as far as possible of technicalities necessary to a textbook but unfamiliar to the general reader, the doctrine expounded by Henry George in "Progress and Poverty," and all his subsequent writings.  Here and there, perhaps, I have been too prolix or too concise. I have been to blame, may be, for undue repetition or insufficient demonstration. That this should happen is unavoidable in matter written hurriedly, and sometimes at the last moment before its publication. Any consideration of questions of political economy should be couched in terms of the utmost exactitude, every definition should be arbitrary, and every sentence clear and capable of but one interpretation. As in "Progress and Poverty" itself, every line should be read and reread, every obscurity removed and every unnecessary word pruned off. But although conscious of failing in this respect here and there, I feel confident that I have not in any essential point diverged from Mr. George's teaching.

The conclusions reached by Henry George in the course of a profound examination into the causes of poverty, misery and crime are shortly these: That labor is the producer of all things; that capital, a tool shaped by labor's own hand, can only be used to assist it; and that monopoly of the matter or material from which these two partners could produce everything requisite for the satisfaction of human needs is alone responsible for the shocking social conditions that now exist throughout the world.

James Maguire's speech in the House of Representatives: 1894-01-31 Direct Taxation of Land Values

Search this on "Santa Marguerita" and on Salinas River.

 

DIRECT TAXATION OF LAND VALUES,

Speech of HON. JAMES G. MAGUIRE, of California.
In the House of Representatives, Wednesday, January 31, 1894.

The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and having under consideration the bill (H. R. 4864) to reduce taxation, to provide revenue for the Government, and for other purposes, and the question being upon an amendment thereto offered by the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. McMillan), providing for a tax on incomes, etc., the following proceedings were had:

MR. MAGUIRE. Mr. Chairman, I offer the amendment which I send to the desk. The amendment was read, as follows:

Amend the amendment by striking out sections 1 to 18 thereof, both inclusive, and inserting in lieu thereof the following:

"And be it further enacted, That a direct tax of $31,311,125 be, and is hereby, annually laid upon land values in the United States, and the same shall be, and is hereby, apportioned to the States and Territories and District of Columbia, respectively, in proportion to population as ascertained by the census enumeration of the year 1890.

"Sec. 2. That the said direct tax laid by this act shall be assessed and laid on the value of all land exclusive and irrespective of the improvements thereon; Provided, That all lands belonging to the United States, or to any State, county, or municipality, shall be exempted from assessment and taxation under this act; And provided further, That all land subject to taxation under this act shall be valued and assessed, for the purpose of taxation, at its full market value, on the first Monday in March of each year, the valuation for the fiscal year commencing on the 1st day of June, 1894, to relate to the first Monday of March, 1894.

"That, for the purpose of assessing said tax and collecting the same, sections 9 to 12, both inclusive; sections 14 to 48, both inclusive, and sections 53 to 58, both inclusive, of that certain act entitled 'An act to provide increased revenue from imports to pay interest on the public debt, and for other purposes,' approved August 5, 1861, are hereby re-enacted and made of full force and effect hi so far as they provide for the assessment and collection of direct taxes on lands and lots of ground, and for any and all methods and procedure in the levying, collection, and enforcement of such taxes."

Mr. MAGUIRE (continuing) said:

Mr. Chairman: The arguments in support of the pending amendment have all proceeded upon the theory that the proposed tax upon incomes, above $4,000 per annum, will compel the rich to bear a fairer proportion of the expenses of the Government than they now bear, and that the people will be satisfied with the accomplishment of that result. The people do, indeed, very much desire the establishment of such a system of taxation, and their claim for a more equitable distribution of the burdens of taxation is unquestionably just. But they are really desirous of substantial relief from the present power of the rich to use their wealth for the oppression of the poor; and they expert some measure of that relief to come to them through the income tax.

Such relief will not come from the income tax, nor will that change in our system of taxation even tend to curb the oppressive power of wealth. It simply puts a 2 percent tax mainly on the results of useful investments and of personal effort. The control of labor by wealth, in certain forms of investment, and the consequent unfairness in the distribution of the products of labor is a matter of infinitely greater importance to the people than the equalization of the burdens of government, which is sought to be accomplished by the income tax. I am in favor of the income tax, as proposed by the Committee on Ways and Means, because it is better than the system of taxation now prevailing; because the burdens which are laid by the income tax, wherever they may ultimately fall, are all for public uses, while under the tariff system three parts of the burden are laid for the enrichment of private individuals to every one part that is collected for public use.

As a choice between the income tax and any extension of tariff taxation, beyond that provided for in the "Wilson" bill, I will unhesitatingly vote for the income tax.

UNDUE POWER OF WEALTH.

But, sir, I seek by the amendment which I have just submitted to establish a system of taxation by which the revenues necessary for the support of this Government can be raised without any burden whatever upon either industry or commerce, and by which, at the same time, the power of accumulated wealth over labor will be destroyed. The power of wealth to oppress labor results almost entirely from the present investment of wealth in the control of the natural resources, from which alone labor can produce wealth.

Land is the storehouse in which the Creator has placed the raw materials of all wealth, and labor is the means by which those raw materials are changed into forms of usefulness for the satisfaction of human wants. Wealth is the result of labor applied to land, or to the products of land, and land furnishes not only this raw material for all wealth, but it constitutes also the home and the working place of all labor. All of these things the Creator freely provided for the use and sustenance and shelter and comfort of mankind by giving the land of the world, with its abundant resources, as an equal heritage to the whole human race. The same Creator made man a land animal. He must live upon the land, and from the fruits of the land, if he shall live at all. All of his food and clothing and shelter, and every other thing that will tend to satisfy his wants, natural and acquired, come from the land. Indeed, his whole physical body comes from the land, and goes back to the land again at the close of his life.

Separated from the land, man must perish, just as a fish would perish on being separated from the water, which is his element. Therefore, if man has a natural and inalienable right to life and to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness, he must have a natural and equally inalienable right to the means which the Creator, who gave him life, has freely and abundantly provided for his support. There can be no right to life more sacred than the right to the means of sustaining life. "You take my life when you do take the means by which I live." Liberty is impossible to one man so long as another man controls his means of living.

The Charitable-Industrial Complex

Here are the final paragraphs in an interesting and perceptive NYT Op-Ed by Peter Buffett.  He comes up with an interesting phrase: "Philanthropic Colonialism"

The Charitable-Industrial Complex - NYTimes.com.

What we have is a crisis of imagination. Albert Einstein said that you cannot solve a problem with the same mind-set that created it. Foundation dollars should be the best “risk capital” out there. 

There are people working hard at showing examples of other ways to live in a functioning society that truly creates greater prosperity for all (and I don’t mean more people getting to have more stuff).  

Money should be spent trying out concepts that shatter current structures and systems that have turned much of the world into one vast market. Is progress really Wi-Fi on every street corner? No. It’s when no 13-year-old girl on the planet gets sold for sex. But as long as most folks are patting themselves on the back for charitable acts, we’ve got a perpetual poverty machine. 

It’s an old story; we really need a new one.

But perhaps Buffett's most important observation is this one:

"Inside any important philanthropy meeting, you witness heads of state meeting with investment managers and corporate leaders. All are searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created with their left." 

To which I can only insert ... "and are benefiting from."

He also points out,

As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to “give back.” It’s what I would call “conscience laundering” — feeling better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity.

But this just keeps the existing structure of inequality in place. The rich sleep better at night, while others get just enough to keep the pot from boiling over. Nearly every time someone feels better by doing good, on the other side of the world (or street), someone else is further locked into a system that will not allow the true flourishing of his or her nature or the opportunity to live a joyful and fulfilled life.

I hope Mr. Buffett will take the time to read Henry George's "Progress and Poverty."   He might be better able to identify the particular structures that create and maintain poverty and the concentrations of wealth, income and power.  And, based on that last sentence, I think Buffett would appreciate the final section of P&P.  (Bob Drake's 2006 abridgment is a fine starting place, but the unabridged is a pleasure of its own.)

Inequalities

Inequalities we are born with, — we cannot help. Differences in physique, disposition, temperament, ability, talent, ambition, perseverance, character and many other personal qualities, will always exist. But these inequalities are made more unequal by inequalities that ought not to exist. It is the economic inequalities that especially command our attention. Inequalities before the law make outlaws of those who are outlawed. Inequalities in the enjoyment of special privileges, natural opportunities and resources, make millionaires at one end of the social line and tramps at the other. Inequalities in wealth and taxation, however they arise, are trouble breeders in every community. While ability and enterprise and push are always recognized as factors in success, still they wholly fail to explain the great disparity of rewards existing between the frugal and industrious on the one side and the profligate idle, drunk with opulence and power, on the other. Too many now have tasted the bitter cup of despair and have looked beneath the economic surface of things to be longer quieted by admonitions of sobriety, Industry and perseverance.

In success, they now see more the hand of fraud and cunning than the qualities of exertion and merit. Their disillusionment is known and appreciated in high places and is well-voiced in the following words of John A. Hobson, Lecturer in Economics, Oxford University:

"Though there are still many comfortably-situated men and women who believe that, on the whole, industrial conditions are such as to apportion the 'good things in life' in accordance with the deserts of the recipients, this belief is rarely held either by those whose circumstances give them a close and wide acquaintance with the 'hard facts of life,' or by those who have brought intellectual analysis to bear upon the processes by which distribution of wealth is affected. The political economy, not only of 'the masses,' as voiced by Karl Marx, Henry George and their followers, but also of the classes, through the mouths of academic teachers, is full of frank avowals of the deep injustices which underlie the existing apportionment of wealth. The following words of J. G. Hill may be taken as a representative expression of this feeling: 'The very idea of distributive justice or any proportionality between success and merit, or between success and exertion, is, in the present state of society, so manifestly chimerical as to be relegated to the region of romance.'"

When you pick up a special privilege and examine it, — whether it be a franchise, a rebate, a tax or a tariff, — you have in your hands someone's special preserve. He is hurt if you criticise, and you are hurt if you don't. The social organism is filled with these special preserves. They are a prolific source of economic inequality. They leave no place for a buffer in the successive distributions of labor brought about by the successive discoveries in the arts and of mechanics and tools. When the natural resources are someone's preserve and are closed to retreat, those crowded out of employment by machines and tools cannot fall back, — they must stagnate and starve, or else go forward. And "forward" here means to turn backward upon the preserves.

-- in The Painter and Decorator, a union journal, 1907

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 8 -- Allen

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

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

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

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

—Hildebrand, Pope Gregory the Great.

(See also March 11)

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

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

The Voice of the Early Church. V.

By St. Ambrose

(Latin; 340?–397)

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

 

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

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

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

The Earth-for-All Calendar: December 22 -- Tolstoy

The earth cannot be anyone's property; it cannot be bought or sold any more than water, air or sunshine.  All have an equal right to the advantages it gives to men.

— COUNT LEO TOLSTOY, Resurrection, Book II., Chap. 6.

Want Less Inequality? Tax It

Want Less Inequality? Tax It.

Pigou, a key bridge figure in the history of his field, was one of the earliest classical economists to notice that markets do not always produce the best possible social outcomes. The pollution generated by a factory imposes costs on those who live downstream or in the path of its airborne emissions. The risks assumed by banks leading up to the recent financial crisis imposed costs on just about everybody. Market transactions often generate what economists call “externalities” — side effects, sometimes positive but often negative, that affect people who do not participate in the transaction. 

Pigou, having recognized the problem, was the first to propose a solution. Society should tax the negative externalities and subsidize the positive ones. This simple notion — if you want less of something, tax it — is why his ideas periodically bubble up in the service of combating a recognizable cost to society, like pollution. We think that his approach offers an answer to another great problem of our time: inequality.    

Does the extreme degree of inequality in America today really create, as Pigou would put it, negative externalities? Does the fact that hedge-fund manager Mr. Jones rakes in 100 or 1,000 times what office manager Mrs. Smith earns impose costs on everybody else? Plenty of Americans think not. Defenders of our skewed income distribution point out that a free-enterprise system requires some inequality. Unequal rewards give people an incentive to work hard and acquire new skills. They encourage inventors to invent, entrepreneurs to start companies, investors to take risks. It’s fine in this view that some people get astronomically rich. As Mitt Romney likes to say, “I’m not going to apologize for being successful.”  

On the other side, many of us have a gut feeling that inequality has gone too far. Our times are reminiscent of the Gilded Age’s worst excesses. Hence the popularity of the Occupy Wall Street movement’s slogan, “We are the 99 percent.”

LVTfan here: Wouldn't it be better to prevent the inequality by such measures as treating the natural creation as our common treasure, instead of permitting its privatization and then taxing back what is taken?   Treating the natural creation, and that which the community creates by its presence and its investment in public goods -- schools, roads, libraries, etc. -- as our COMMON treasure would create equal opportunity for all, a much better idea than permitting some to capture it and then taxing some of their booty back after the fact.   When we let some reap what others sow, and then take back a share after the fact, we're still permitting them to reap which deprives the sowers of that right.  Whether it be nature doing the sowing, or the community as a whole, no good can come of permitting the privatization of that.  Henry George, in "Progress and Poverty" and "Social Problems" showed the logical, efficient, just way to do better.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: November 6 -- Spencer

Given a race of human beings having like claims to pursue, the objects of their desires — given a world it adapted to the gratification of those desires — a world into which such beings are similarly born, and it unavoidably follows that they have equal rights in the use of the world.

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

Chrystia Freeland: Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else

Chrystia Freeland: Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else.

Henry George is the most famous American popular economist you've never heard of, a 19th century cross between Michael Lewis, Howard Dean and Ron Paul. Progress and Poverty, George's most important book, sold three million copies and was translated into German, French, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Spanish, Russian, Hungarian, Hebrew and Mandarin. During his lifetime, George was probably the third best-known American, eclipsed only by Thomas Edison and Mark Twain. He was admired by the foreign luminaries of the age, too -- Leo Tolstoy, Sun-Yat Sen and Albert Einstein, who wrote that "men like Henry George are unfortunately rare. One cannot image a more beautiful combination of intellectual keenness, artistic form and fervent love of justice." George Bernard Shaw described his own thinking about the political economy as a continuation of the ideas of George, whom he had once heard deliver a speech.

Later, she writes,

What George found most mysterious about the economic consequences of the industrial revolution was that its failure to deliver economic prosperity was not uniform -- instead it had created a winner-take-all society: "Some get an infinitely better and easier living, but others find it hard to get a living at all. The 'tramp' comes with the locomotives, and almshouses and prisons are as surely the marks of 'material progress' as are costly dwellings, rich warehouses and magnificent churches. Upon streets lighted with gas and patrolled by uniformed policeman, beggars wait for the passer-by, and in the shadow of college, and library, and museum, are gathering the more hideous Huns and fiercer Vandals of whom Macaulay prophesied."

George's diagnosis was beguilingly simple -- the fruits of innovation weren't widely shared because they were going to the landlords. This was a very American indictment of industrial capitalism: at a time when Marx was responding to Europe's version of progress and poverty with a wholesale denunciation of private property, George was an enthusiastic supporter of industry, free trade and a limited role for government. His culprits were the rentier rich, the landowners who profited hugely from industrialization and urbanization, but did not contribute to it.

George had such tremendous popular appeal because he addressed the obvious inequity of 19th century American capitalism without disavowing capitalism itself. George wasn't trying to build a communist utopia. His campaign promise was to rescue America from the clutches of the robber barons and to return it to "the democracy of Thomas Jefferson." That ideal -- as much Tea Party as Occupy Wall Street -- won support not only among working class voters and their leaders, like Samuel Gompers, but also resonated with many small businessmen. Robert Ingersoll, a Republican orator, attorney and intellectual, was a George supporter. He urged his fellow Republicans to back his man and thereby "show that their sympathies are not given to bankers, corporations and millionaires."

 

 

I commend the entire post, adapted from Freeland's new book, Plutocrats.  It ends with these paragraphs:

"America today urgently needs a 21st century Henry George -- a thinker who embraces the wealth-creating power of capitalism, but squarely faces the inequity of its current manifestation. That kind of thinking is missing on the right, which is still relying on Reagan-era trickle-down economics and hopes complaints about income inequality can be silenced with accusations of class war. But the left isn't doing much better either, preferring nostalgia for the high-wage, medium-skill manufacturing jobs of the post-war era and China-bashing to a serious and original effort to figure out how to make 21st century capitalism work for the middle class.

Globalization and the technology revolution aren't going away -- and thank goodness for that. Industrialization didn't go away either. But between 1886, when George lost the mayoral race, and the presidency of FDR, American progressives invented, fought for and implemented a broad range of new social and political institutions to make capitalism serve the whole of society -- ranging from trust-busting, to the income tax, to the welfare state.

We are living in an era of comparably tumultuous economic change. The great challenge of our time is to devise the new social and political institutions we need to make the new economy work for everyone. So far, that is a historic task neither party is taking on with enough energy, honesty or originality."

Those looking for a starting point might look for Walt Rybeck's book, Re-Solving the Economic Puzzle.

Along the same lines, you might find interesting an earlier post here, an article by Thomas Shearman entitled "Henry George's Mistakes."  (He was a co-founder of Shearman & Sterling, and went on to write some excellent articles on plutocracy in The Standard, October, 1887.)

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

The land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

— Exodus, XX., 12.

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

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

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

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

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

The Earth-for-All Calendar: September 16 -- Marmontel and Scott

"If we are equal and if we are brethren, make me free," he would say to you; "and as a first favor cease to rob me of the gifts which nature has provided for me."

— MARMONTEL, Address in favor of the Peasants of the North (1757), OEuvres, Vol. X., p. 84.

Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
        This is my own, my native land?

— SIR WALTER SCOTT, Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto VI., I.

One's "Fair Share"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Right-to-Life Platform -- 125 years old

As I listen to the 2012 party platforms, I am reminded of what they ought to be focused on, embodied pretty well in this platform from 1886-87. 

PLATFORM OF THE UNITED PARTY.
Adopted at Syracuse August 19, 1887.

We, the delegates of the united labor party of New York, in state convention assembled, hereby reassert, as the fundamental platform of the party, and the basis on which we ask the co-operation of citizens of other states, the following declaration or principles adopted on September 23, 1886, by the convention of trade and labor associations of the city of New York, that resulted in the formation of the united labor party.   

"Holding that the corruptions of government and the impoverishment of labor result from neglect of the self-evident truths proclaimed by the founders of this republic that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, we aim at the abolition of a system which compels men to pay their fellow creatures for the use of God’s gifts to all, and permits monopolizers to deprive labor of natural opportunities for employment, thus filling the land with tramps and paupers and bringing about an unnatural competition which tends to reduce wages to starvation rates and to make the wealth producer the industrial slave of those who grow rich by his toil.

'“Holding, moreover, that the advantages arising from social growth and improvement belong to society at large, we aim at the abolition of the system which makes such beneficent inventions as the railroad and telegraph a means for the oppression of the people and the aggrandizement of an aristocracy of wealth and power. We declare the true purpose of government to be the maintenance of that sacred right of property which gives to every one opportunity to employ his labor, and security that he shall enjoy its fruits; to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak, and the unscrupulous from robbing the honest; and to do for the equal benefit of all such things as can be better done by organized society than by individuals; and we aim at the abolition of all laws which give to any class of citizens advantages, either judicial, financial, industrial or political, that are not equally shared by all others."

We call upon all who seek the emancipation of labor, and who would make the American union and its component states democratic commonwealths of really free and independent citizens, to ignore all minor differences and join with us in organizing a great national party on this broad platform of natural rights and equal justice. We do not aim at securing any forced equality in the distribution of wealth. We do not propose that the state shall attempt to control production, conduct distribution, or in any wise interfere with the freedom of the individual to use his labor or capital in any way that may seem proper to him and that will not interfere with the equal rights of others. Nor do we propose that the state shall take possession of land and either work it or rent it out. What we propose is not the disturbing of any man in his holding or title, but by abolishing all taxes on industry or its products, to leave to the producer the full fruits of his exertion and by the taxation of land values, exclusive or improvements, to devote to the common use and benefit those values, which, arising not from the exertion of the individual, but from the growth of society, belong justly to the community as a whole. This increased taxation of land, not according to its area, but according to its value, must, while relieving the working farmer and small homestead owner of the undue burdens now imposed upon them, make it unprofitable to hold land for speculation, and thus throw open abundant opportunities for the employment of labor and the building up of homes.

While thus simplifying government by doing away with the horde of officials required by the present system of taxation and with its incentives to fraud and corruption, we would further promote the common weal and further secure the equal rights of all, by placing under public control such agencies as are in their nature monopolies: We would have our municipalities supply their inhabitants with water, light and heat; we would have the general government issue all money, without the intervention of banks; we would add a postal telegraph system and postal savings banks to the postal service, and would assume public control and ownership of those iron roads which have become the highways of modern commerce.

While declaring the foregoing to be the fundamental principles and aims of the united labor party, and while conscious that no reform can give effectual and permanent relief to labor that does not involve the legal recognition of equal rights, to natural opportunities, we nevertheless, as measures of relief from some of the evil effects of ignoring those rights, favor such legislation as may tend to reduce the hours of labor, to prevent the employment of children of tender years, to avoid the competition of convict labor with honest industry, to secure the sanitary inspection of tenements, factories and mines, and to put an end to the abuse of conspiracy laws.

We desire also to so simplify the procedure of our courts and diminish the expense of legal proceedings, that the poor may be placed on an equality with the rich and the long delays winch now result in scandalous miscarriages of justice may be prevented.

And since the ballot is the only means by which in our Republic the redress of political and social grievances is to besought, we especially and emphatically declare for the adoption of what is known as the “Australian system of voting,” an order that the effectual secrecy of the ballot and the relief of candidates for public office from the heavy expenses now imposed upon them, may prevent bribery and intimidation, do away with practical discriminations in favor of the rich and unscrupulous, and lessen the pernicious influence of money in politics.

In support or these aims we solicit the co-operation of all patriotic citizens who, sick of the degradation of politics, desire by constitutional methods to establish justice, to preserve liberty, to extend the spirit of fraternity, and to elevate humanity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Earth-for-All Calendar: July 17 -- Dove

The great social problem, then, that cannot fail ere long to appear in the arena of European discussion is, "to discover such a system as shall secure to every man his exact share of the natural advantages which the Creator has provided for the race; while, at the same time, he has full opportunity, without let or hindrance, to exercise his skill, industry, and perseverance for his own advantage."

— PATRICK EDWARD DOVE, Theory of Human Progression, (1850), Chap. III., Sec. 3, p. 305.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: July 6 -- John Boyle O'Reilly

Earth for the people — their laws their own —
    An equal race for all;
Though shattered and few, who to this are true
    Shall flourish the more they fall.

— JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY, Resurgite, Songs, Legends and Ballads, p. 43.

High Rent as the Best Manure

"High rent is the best manure ever land got."

This quote is attributed to the Irish landlords, in an 1835 piece by Thomas Ainge Devyr entitled "Natural Rights: A Pamphlet for the People."

The statement bears thinking about: when private landlords collect high rents, they force their tenants to work quite hard -- keep in mind that they still have to pay taxes on various things in order to support local spending -- while the landlord has provided them NOTHING that he has made (and nothing he has bought from the fellow who made it, either).

But at the same time, it is worth considering what happens when the community collects reasonably high rents on the land, particularly urban land.  When the community collects high rent, there are no vacant lots.  There are relatively few underused lots.  There is housing for all who want it.  All this economic activity creates jobs -- for those who would design, those who would build, those who would maintain, those who would improve, those who would expand, those who would protect.  All those workers' needs and spending create more jobs.  Wages rise, as jobs chase workers.  

So the phrase is not simply an 18th century rural one, but highly relevant in 21st century U.S. cities, towns and rural areas.  When the community collects the land rent and recycles it to serve local needs -- schools, parks, well-maintained roads, public transportation systems, police, ambulance, fire protection, courts -- communities become good places to live.  When we permit private landlords (be they individual or corporate, universities or trusts) to pocket those funds -- and perhaps "invest" the excess in acquiring more land on which to pocket the rent, those good things, if they happen at all, must be financed by high taxes on productive activity.

One is a virtuous circle; the other a vicious one.  Which one is consistent with our ideals?  If Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are for ALL of us, then I think we have to opt for the virtuous circle.

 

Resource Rentals for Revenue -- The 3 R's of fixing our economy

I came across an excellent site at http://www.resourcerentalsrevenue.org, and thought their FAQ page particularly worth sharing.   The links will take you to answers.

We don't HAVE to burden ourselves and our economy with taxes which throw a wet blanket on jobs, on production, on homes.  There is a better way to finance our common spending!

Resource Rentals for Revenue.

The following list comprises the most commonly asked questions about the concept of making land and resource rentals the source of revenue for government. As you continue this study, you will see the value from giving resources the respect they deserve and the benefits resulting from the freeing of labour, production and exchange from taxation. If you have any questions which are not covered here, or observations you would like to put to our panel, please feel free to do so by sending your question as an e-mail query and we will attempt to respond.

The inclusion of land and resources in the economic equation is central to any solution for revenue raising. A taxation solution which does not consider the nature of taxation itself and allows the continuing private monopolisation of community land and resources fails to recognise the essential role land plays in the economic equation and will not work. Land is the only element in the economic equation which is both fixed and finite. It can be monopolised. It is a unique class of asset which must be treated accordingly. If we were to wrest not the land itself, but its unimproved value from private monopolies and return the value to the community — whose very presence creates it — then we would have reduced many problems in one stroke with great benefit to production, to the environment and to the cause of individual freedom and justice.

On the subject of land and resource rents, Henry George said this:

The tax upon land values is the most just and equal of all taxes. It falls upon those who receive from society a peculiar and valuable benefit, and upon them in proportion to the benefit they receive. It is the taking by the community, for the use of the community, of that value which is the creation of the community. It is the application of the common property to common uses. When all rent is taken by taxation for the needs of the community, then will the equality ordained by nature be attained.

1.Understandings

• What’s with all the terminology?
• Won’t the site rent be passed on to the tenant?
• It sounds too simple
• What is the difference between Land Value and Land Price?
• What is meant by ‘unimproved’ value?
• Why is income from land ‘unearned’ income?
• There is no such thing as a free lunch.
• There is no unimproved land value!
• This tax, like a debits tax, ignores two of the basic principles of raising tax
• It’s incorrect to suggest that income derived from holding land or resources out of use is not a productive activity. It is, since it produces income for the owner.

2.Interest Groups

• Will I be better off with Resource Rentals?
• Are resource rentals fair?
• Wouldn’t the wealthy simply find some way of evading it?
• Wouldn’t the wealthy sell up and flee with their wealth?
• Won’t the poor get caught, while the rich escape as usual?
• Would farmers be able to afford the tax?
• How will it affect multinationals (MNC’s)?
• How will it affect lenders and borrowers?
• Entrepreneurs and Manufacturers?
• Exporters and Importers?
• Environmentalists?
• Won’t it fall harder on the prince in his mansion than on the pauper in his hovel?
• How would old age pensioners on valuable sites be able to pay the site rent as suggested?
• What happens to the self-funded or partly self-funded retiree?
• Unemployed adults - currently untaxed but perhaps owning their own home? Will they have to pay as well?
• The investor in a site has taken a risk, and tied up their capital – who else could possibly be entitled to their capital gain?

3.Implementation

• How would such a system be implemented?
• What would happen to Land Prices?
• If resource rentals are such a good idea, why don’t we have them?
• Why would anyone want to own land under this system?
• How do I buy a property?
• If site values fall, won’t revenue fall too?
• How will it curb unemployment?
• Wouldn’t we run out of space?
• Who wins; who loses?
• Will pensioners and retirees - currently untaxed but living in their own property, be liable for site rents? Will they be reimbursed for past taxes paid?
• New enterprises - yet to realise any profit but paying tax on the property from which they operate? If you tax them, won’t they fail?
• Why don’t we impose reciprocal import duties?
• What about anti-pollution tax rebates?
• What about a Debits Tax?
• Site Rent for Revenue is a crackpot idea.
• Why put the entire burden of taxation on one area of economic activity?

Good questions -- and good answers!

An Address to the Churches (1899)

This item, from a Canadian library, seems to me to be a good short statement of the reform many of us seek; I particularly like the next-to-last paragraph.

1899
ADDRESS TO THE CHURCHES
FROM THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS:

The Single Tax Association,
The Trades and Labor Council,
The Allied Printing Trades Council,
The International Builders' Laborers' Union,
The International Association of Machinists,
The Toronto Typographical Union,
The Toronto Street Railway Employees' Union and Benefit Society.

THE circumstances of the last few years have revealed a most serious condition in the social arrangements of this Continent.  With an immeasurable endowment of natural wealth, with the improvement of machinery beyond all parallel, with the means of transportation perfected as never before, with the power of producing wealth in abundance vastly greater than in any other age, we still see the terrible sight of ghastly poverty, of oppressive want, of enforced idleness, and all this in the shadow of palaces with all the outward and visible signs of inordinate luxury.

Is it not true that the larger the city the more evident is the widening of the gulf between the haunts of poverty and the palaces of the millionaires?  Is it not manifestly evident that somehow and somewhere in our social arrangements there is an unfortunate want of equity, a terrible miscarriage of justice?  When some must toil like slaves and then secure only a fractional part of what they produce, and when others without doing the slightest productive act, can enjoy an abundance of superfluous luxuries, when with the most ample natural opportunities for employment, thousands find it so difficult to secure employment, how can the industrial classes be convinced that equity reigns and justice triumphs?

We trust you will pardon us for submitting to you the following enquiries: —

For whom did the Creator furnish this vast storehouse of natural wealth?  What are we to understand by the terms "God the Father, maker of heaven and earth" and the terms "Dearly beloved brethren"?  Are we to understand that he is the universal father and that every child of every generation can come to him with the same filial reverence and say, "My Father, am not I thy child, an heir of thy bounties?"  Do you ask us to accept this doctrine of Fatherhood and Brotherhood, this doctrine of equal heirship for all, or are we to understand that herein is a serious mistake, that we are not all equally the heirs to his gifts, but that the bounties of the Creator were a special gift to one portion of humanity, to them and their heirs, "to have and to hold forever?"  Are we to regard it as in accordance with equity, that one part of humanity may claim for themselves the power to exclude us from these bounties, and to demand from us an endless tribute for occupying the surface of the planet, so that no matter how abundant may be our productions, we must for ever surrender that abundance for the opportunity of getting access to the common heritage furnished by the Creator?

When the farmer produces food and the clothier produces clothing, and they exchange, we can at once recognize the equity and justice of the transaction.  In this transaction we see the fulfilment of the Golden Rule, to do unto others as we would have others do unto us.  This is service for service, burden for burden, sacrifice for sacrifice, enrichment for enrichment, and its equity is at once most clearly apparent.  There is no difficulty in seeing the justice of the transaction that leaves both parties benefited by a mutual enrichment and we can at once recognize the brotherhood in the injunction:  "Bear ye one another's burdens and thus fulfil the law of Christ."

Nor is there any difficulty in understanding that when men have raised crops, built houses, fabricated goods, when they have changed scarcity into abundance, then they have established an unquestionable right to claim abundance.

We ask you now to look at a marked contrast to these examples.  The growth of population on this continent is proceeding with very great rapidity, especially in the cities, many of which double their population every ten years.  With this increase of population there must necessarily come relative scarcity of land.  While, therefore, industry is ever striving to produce abundance of commodities, increased population is necessarily making land more scarce.  Now we would like to know by what principle of justice should we, who beget the abundance, have to surrender that abundance and thus have left for ourselves only scarcity, while speculators and other holders of land, claim the abundance that we have produced because land has become scarce?

Is there not something monstrously unjust, awfully inequitable in this arrangement?  With every increase in population, with every public improvement, the land holder can claim from us more and more.  As the years go by his claim may increase ten fold, twenty fold, fifty fold, a hundred fold or a thousand fold.  Is this because he has increased the productiveness of his energies, and the abundance of his industry?  Is it because of his industry that the harvest waves, that dwellings increase, that railroads develop?  Not at all, but the very reverse.  Does he give abundance for abundance, benefit for benefit?  Not at all, but the very reverse.  It is out of the abundance of our products that he is licensed by law to appropriate that abundance and to leave us but a meagre relict of penury.  The transaction is not enrichment for enrichment, but while we enrich, the land holder impoverishes.

Could there be anything more contrary to the spirit of true religion than this method by which, as fast as one party does the enriching, another party appropriates the riches, leaving the producers in poverty?

The producers of abundance despoiled and left with scarcity; others allowed to appropriate the abundance because land becomes scarce; and by our present arrangements this may continue to the end of time, the obligation of the industrious classes ever increasing, thus insuring their endless impoverishment, the power of the land owner to appropriate the products of industry ever increasing, thus insuring the widening of the gulf between leisured affluence and overworked poverty.  Can we be convinced that this is the fruits of righteousness and of that "love which rejoices not in iniquity"?

We have no difficulty in understanding why we should pay the farmer who feeds us, the tailor who clothes us, the teacher who instructs us, and any one who produces for us, or renders us a service; but we cannot possibly understand why we should have to pay any man for access to the land, the forest, the minerals or the other things that man never furnished, any more than we should have to pay him for the sunlight, the air or any other gift of the Creator, and it is equally difficult to understand why we should have to pay an increasing amount of our productions to land holders because the increase of population makes land more scarce. Is not the whole system of land speculation an attempt to secure the products of industry by the impoverishment of the producers; how can it succeed except by the spoliation and degradation of industry?  Is it not a wrong that should receive the most emphatic condemnation of the whole church?

You urge us, you plead with us, you beseech us to come and unite with you and to yield ourselves to the claims of religion.  But what kind of religion do you ask us to adopt?  A religion that rejoices in equity, that loves justice and hates iniquity; or a religion that looks on the spoliation of labor, if not with complacency at any rate too often in silent tolerance or even acquiescence?  A religion that recognizes every child of God as equally the heir of God, the heir to the bounties of the All-Father-Creator, or a religion that ignores the fact that the earth with all its potentialities is the gift of God to his children?  A religion that seeks to secare all the benefits and rewards of an advancing civilization to those who bear the burden of begetting and supporting that civilization, or a religion that secures the benefits of civilization to the full and overflowing to those, who not merely contribute nothing whatever to its maintenance, but who
by their mischievous dog-in-the-manger speculations, often stand in the way of its progress?  A religion that demands obedience before sacrifice, or a religion that substitutes charity for justice and cast-off clothing for the principles of righteousness!

Is it not vain to expect men to join with enthusiastic devotion in the propagation of a professed religion that unfortunately ignores the highest claims of religion, that repeats, "Our Father who art in heaven," but ignores the fatherhood on earth, that initiates its service with "Dearly beloved brethren," and then splits society into lordlings and serfs, that enjoins honesty and then fosters and rewards despoiling speculations, that with the lips extols peace and unity, love and justice, but, alas! alas! maintains in operation lorces that beget hostility and discord, strikes and lockouts, riots and labor wars?

The universal and unvarying testimony of the ages endorses the truth, "As ye sow, so shall ye also reap."  To sow the seeds of injustice and to expect the fruits of righteousness, to plant the apples of discord and then to look for the fruits of peace, is to look for limpid purity in the stream, while maintaining putrescent corruption in the fountain, it is to look for grapes from thorns and figs from thistles.

With all respect we submit to you these thoughts as transcendantly the most important to which we could call your attention.

From "The New Earth," December 1899

The masthead for "The New Earth" -- by 1899 already in volume XI -- says "Devoted to the study and illustration of Social Problems on Moral and Religious Grounds." 

Below that, each issue says,

WE DEMAND

The opening of all natural opportunities to Labor and Capital, so that both may be fully and constantly employed and receive their full earnings.

TO EFFECT THIS,

We would take through taxation the rental value of land, completely exempting improvements, and would use this revenue for public purposes in lieu of the taxes that now oppress labor and Capital and restrict their productive employment.

 

In our address "To our readers " last month we advanced the proposition, which indeed is an almost self-evident truth, that the better side of human nature, the side of him which lifts man above mere animalism and materialism, which enables him to transcend mere self-seeking and to find his highest delight in ministering to the welfare of others, requires for its orderly growth and development, social and material conditions which shall parallel, correspond to or embody this better side of us. We maintained that it was as irrational on the part of sincere religious-minded people to expect the graces of the spirit to flourish in social conditions which bear no relation to these graces save that of inveterate antagonism to them as it would be on the part of a farmer to expect a crop of wheat from seed sown on the sand of a rainless desert. Social conditions are, of course, no more the cause of the higher life of man, than fertile ground is the cause of the crop. They are simply the soil in which the higher life can germinate and be nursed to maturity. The cause in the one case is within man himself, as in the other it is within the seed; in both cases it is the creative energy.

But man, both as an individual and as a race, is at first unconscious of this better nature of his, as well as of the kind of life of which it is capable, and through which it must eventually express itself. He becomes conscious of this part of himself by degrees, one step at a time. This process is called evolution. But all evolution necessitates a corresponding previous involution. No plant can grow, or be evolved, from a seed unless the germ of the plant first exist within the seed. So in the case of mankind, no advance in social development is possible unless the germ of better social conditions be within man himself.

Of this germ within it mankind becomes conscious slowly and as the years and ages roll by. It first takes the form of aspirations, and longings and hopes for gentler, humaner and juster relations between men, and of clearer and ever clearer perceptions in respect to the character of the Creator and His relations to His creatures. But these aspirations and perceptions must ever remain as dreams more than any thing else, and even then be confined to a few, until they become sensibly imaged or embodied in corresponding social conditions.

That society as at present organized bears true relation neither to our best aspirations nor to the conceptions of the character of the Creator entertained by every intelligent mind needs no showing. That our Creator and source of life should be a respecter of persons, that He should consider some of His creatures as more fitting objects of His regard than others, that He should provide for the eternal progress of some and leave that of others unprovided for, is a conception of Him utterly discarded by every man today whose mental growth has gone beyond that of the dark ages. But such gross conception of the Creator is just that of which organized society at this day is an embodiment. The kind of ownership of the natural opportunities with which we invest some among us is a representative picture of a conception of the Creator that makes Him a capricious, unjust monarch, granting privileges to a few favorites, and venting His spleen on all others. This is the only kind of conception of His character possible to the great mass of human beings as long as such conditions exist. Preach as we may, institute revivals of religion as we may, no other conception of the Creator can germinate, bear fruit and be a reality among us than this pagan and savage one.

To every honest holder of the more enlightened conceptions of the character of the Creator, then, the questions at once present themselves: What are the principles which society must recognize in order that social and material conditions may fittingly reflect these conceptions; and what can I do to bring about these conditions? True belief, especially on a subject of this kind, must lead to action. The self-satisfaction of entertaining more enlightened convictions than others, and being content with that, is the most hideous form of unbelief.

The answer to these questions is not hard to discover. Organized society, in order that it make any approach to the conditions required of it as a soil in which may flourish true ideas of spiritual life must recognize the equal right of all its members in the bounties of nature and the opportunities offered by the general advance of civilization. It must find means jealously to protect these rights amid all the changing and more and more complex conditions which every progressing body of people must experience.

We, now, unhesitatingly assert that only by building upon the Single Tax ideal can these rights be maintained. In no other way can any real equality of opportunity be assured to every one. When the rental value of land, and nothing but that, is taken through taxation and spent for public needs, opportunities for making a living become open to all more equally than would be possible under any artificially devised scheme of government control. The Single Tax would do the work automatically, and without the the friction and consequent waste of power involved in any direct control and allotment of opportunities by the government.

The Single Tax would, moreover, provide another requirement of orderly social conditions. It would make every man work out his own material salvation, and so embody to us the truth that every man must work out his own spiritual salvation. Under the Single Tax there would be no royal road to the acquisition of material wealth, even as there is no royal road to the acquisition of mental wealth or of spiritual riches.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: April 20 -- Gerald Massey

They ate up Earth and promised you
   The Heaven of an empty shell!
'Twas theirs to say: 'twas yours to do,
   On pain of everlasting Hell!
They rob and leave you helplessly
   For help of Heaven to cry and call;
Heaven did not make your misery;
    The Earth was given for all.

— GERALD MASSEY, The Earth for All, My Lyrical Life, 2d Series, p. 232.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: April 13 -- Jefferson

Wherever there is in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on.

— THOMAS JEFFERSON (1785), Ford's Writings of Jefferson, Vol. VII., 36.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: April 1: Queen Elizabeth's Prayerbook

Thou, O Lord, providest enough for all men with Thy most liberal and bountiful hand, but whereas Thy gifts are, in respect of Thy goodness and free favour, made common to all men, we (through our naughtiness, niggardship and distrust), do make them private and peculiar. Correct Thou the thing which our inequity hath put out of order, and let Thy goodness supply that which our niggardliness hath plucked away.

— A Prayer for Them That Be in Poverty, from Queen Elizabeth's Private Prayer Book (1578).

The Earth-for-All Calendar: March 27 -- Paine and Penn

Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated land owes to the community a ground rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds.

— THOMAS PAINE, Agrarian Justice, Paine's Writings, Vol. III., p. 329 (1795-6).

If all men were so far tenants to the public that the superfluities of gain and expense were applied to the exigencies thereof, it would put an end to taxes, leave never a beggar and make the greatest bank for national trade in Europe.

— WILLIAM PENN, Reflections and Maxims, Sec. 222, Works V., pp. 190-1.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: March 23 - Voltaire

Each individual owns that part of the national territory and revenue which the laws secure to him, and no possession or enjoyment can at any time be withdrawn from the operation of the law.

— VOLTAIRE, Dictionnaire Philosophique, tit. Droit Canonique, Sec. 2,

Oeuvres, Vol. LIV., p. 138.

Bob Andelson: An Open Letter to Pope John Paul II

Open Letter to Pope John Paul II

by the late Robert Andelson

Your Holiness,

THE QUESTION OF MISERY

At the outdoor mass you held in Wroclaw in Poland during your recent visit to that country, you said the following very true and sincere words:

"The Earth is capable of feeding everyone. Why therefore -- here at the end of the 20th century -- should thousands of people die from starvation" -- "Pray solidarity will prevail over the unrestrained thirst for profit and ways to handle laws of trade, which do not take into consideration inalienable human rights".

It was the same concern about the greed of the wealthy and the plight of the poor, that your predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, expressed in his Encyclical Letter of 1891, 'Rerum Novarum'. Yet, in the more than hundred years that have past, if there has been a change, it has been for the worse!

The wealth is there. The growth of industry and the discoveries of science about which Pope Leo spoke, are even more fantastic and surprising than he would have imagined in his most inspired dreams. The enormous fortunes of individuals, of which he also spoke, have become more enormous. Yet the poverty is still there.  Even in countries that are considered wealthy, people are homeless and live in cardboard boxes; people die, not just by the thousands as your Holiness said in Wroclaw, but by the millions, from poverty related diseases, malnutrition and starvation. You are indeed right to ask the question:

WHY?

THE EXCLUSION FROM THE GIFTS OF GOD

As your Holiness will know, the Encyclical Letter of 1891 was not only an attack on socialism, but also a strong defence of the right to hold land as private property, a right that Pope Leo XIII claimed to be natural.

But the right to hold land includes the right for the owner to exclude other people from it, and, as all usable land in industrially developed countries is owned in that way, people without such a right will be unable to enjoy the gifts of God unless they accept the conditions exacted of them by a landowner. Neither can they work, reside nor relax without land, and again they have to accept conditions exacted by a landowner.

Normally the landowner will ask people to pay the market-determined site rental, which is high because of the many excluded people who want land, or he will offer to let them work at a market-determined wage, which is low because of many excluded people wanting a working place.

Some people, in fact -- as a consequence of the many excluded -- a growing number of people, can neither qualify for a job nor afford to pay the site rental, and they have to live on the streets, on the roads, at the dumping grounds or wherever they can find a poor shelter, some clothes and a little to eat. Some of them find that crime and prison give them a better life than there is available through the legal opportunities open to them.

In some countries Social Security is implemented to mitigate the cruel consequences of the exclusion of people from the gifts of God. The Social Security bill is not paid by landowners, but by entrepreneurs, wage earners, pensioners, savers and consumers.

In other countries only private charity is available to relieve the hardships.

But neither Social Security nor charity will change the basic injustice that causes the horrible conditions of the people excluded, that increases the site rentals to be paid for the use of land, and reduces net-wages, widening the gap between poor and rich. The basic cause of these evils has to be destroyed.

Political leaders from all over the world, including representatives of the Holy See, agreed at the United Nations conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) at Istanbul last year, that:

"The failure to adapt, at all levels, appropriate rural and urban land policies and land management practices remains a primary cause of inequity and poverty".

LETTER TO POPE LEO XIII

Allow us, your Holiness, to point to the Open Letter of September 11th, 1891, written in New York by Henry George and sent to your predecessor his Holiness Pope Leo XIII, as a response to 'Rerum Novarum'.
 
Published as a book this Open Letter has been read by many thousands, and still today the book is sold and read.

Henry George did consider 'inalienable human rights' and 'unrestrained thirst for profit and ways to handle laws of trade'. On exactly this background he spoke for all people's equal rights to the gifts of God.

To maintain this right for everybody and at the same time to allow exclusive right for some to own land as private property, he advocated that people who are given the exclusive right to own land -- and thereby the right to exclude other people from the gifts of Nature -- should pay a compensation to the people they exclude (in fact to all citizens).

The compensation, as a duty to be paid by the landowners, should be the market-determined rentals of the sites from which they can exclude others. This being a fair charge of justice as the rentals are not due to efforts or investments made by the landowners, but due to the development of society and to the growth of the population of human beings, all wanting a place to work, and a place to reside.

The rentals should be collected from all landowners by society, and the revenue should be used to the benefit of all citizens. In that way, Henry George emphasized, all citizens would be able to get their equal share of the gifts of God.

HOLY INCENTIVES OR HOLLOW FALSEHOOD

We do agree with your Holiness and with Henry George that people have private right to property created by man, the right to the fruits of their labour; and also that people can achieve private right to exclusive possession of land, from which they can exclude other people.

But we find it logically inconsistent to believe that people have equal right to life and to be on the Earth, when at the same time some of them have exclusive right to own land as private property without paying compensation to those people whom they exclude from their land.

Your Holiness' sincere words, as quoted initially in this letter, accord with Rerum Novarum of 1891 and with the Habitat II statement quoted above, but they will only become true if your Holiness will succeed in urging on the rulers/governments of this world to collect the annual market-determined Site Rentals of all land in their countries, and distribute the revenue thus acquired to the benefit of all their citizens.

If your Holiness could succeed in persuading the governments to do so, all people on Earth would gain equal access to the gifts of Nature, and true solidarity would become a reality. If not, all statements about equal right to life, to work, to education and to residence, will continue being hollow and false; and our successors will not see a change for the better; on the contrary, they will see the gap between very rich people and alienated poor people grow bigger, and the problems of poverty grow more serious than they are today.

OUR PRAYER

We pray your Holiness may succeed in convincing the governments of this world of the importance of public collection of the annual market rental of all land, and the revenue to be used for equal benefit of all the citizens, thus to provide far all human beings, equal rights to the gifts of Nature.

Let this become the manifestation of the new Millennium, the 2000 year anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ. Let it become a Jubilee in the original meaning of the word, striking unjust shackles from society; thereby preparing a new age of humanity, a social life in friendship and peace.

 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: March 9 -- Spence

While I was in the wood alone by myself a gathering of nuts, the forester popped through the bushes upon me, and asking me what I did there, I answered, "Gathering nuts." 

"Gathering nuts!" said he; "and dare you say so?"  

"Yes," said I.  "Why not? Would you question a monkey or a squirrel about such a business?"

 .   .  "I tell you," said he, "this wood is not common; it belongs to the Duke of Portland."  

"Oh! My service to the Duke of Portland," said I; "Nature knows no more of him than of me. Therefore, as in Nature's storehouse the rule is, First come, first served, so the Duke of Portland must look sharp if he wants any nuts."

— THOMAS SPENCE, Pig's Meat (1793)

in Land for the Landless (Wm. Reeves, 1896), pp. 7-8.

The Land Questions: #37

37.  Our ancestors bought or stole the land which the ancestors of some of those now identified as "Native Americans" relied on.  How should we and our children pay back them and their children?

A. By giving them the privilege of selling cigarettes without taxes, forgoing revenue that could help meet the health costs associated with smoking, both for smokers and for those who live with them.

B. By giving them the privilege of running casinos, even if a percentage of that revenue must be contributed to the state, and even if gambling is creates tremendous problems for some individuals in society, beyond those who actually gamble.

C. By collecting from everyone who owns land and natural resources the annual economic value, and giving everyone a per-capita share of those resources, every year, forever.  (Similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund)

D.  By collecting from everyone who owns land and natural resources the annual economic value, and giving everyone a per-capita share of those resources, every year, forever, and providing a double share to those who are starting from a disadvantaged position for some fixed number of years

E. By collecting from everyone who owns land and natural resources the annual economic value, paying the costs of government and common spending from that source, producing equal opportunity for all.

F. Your suggestions?

 

Brief Statement of Single Tax Philosophy

This is from Joseph Dana Miller, the editor of the Single Tax Year Book (1917), and it is a concise statement which might help make clear why I think this such an important reform in the 21st century.

Men have a right to land because they cannot live without it and because no man made it. It is a free gift of nature, like air, like sunshine. Men ought not to be compelled to pay other men for its use. It is, if you please, a natural right, because arising out of the nature of man, or if you do not like the term, an equal right, equal in that it should be shared alike. This is no new discovery, for it is lamely and imperfectly recognized by primitive man (in the rude forms of early land communism) and lamely and imperfectly by all civilized communities (in laws of "eminent domain", and similar powers exercised by the State over land). It is recognized by such widely differing minds as Gregory the Great and Thomas Paine (the religious and the rationalistic), Blackstone and Carlyle (the legal and the imaginative). All points of view include more or less dimly this conception of the peculiar nature of land as the inheritance of the human race, and not a proper subject for barter and sale.

This is the philosophy, the principle. The end to be sought is the establishment of the principle -- equal right to land in practice. We cannot divide the land -- that is impossible. We do not need to nationalize it that is, to take it over and rent it out, since this would entail needless difficulty. We could do this, but there is a better method.

The principle, which no man can successfully refute or deny even to himself, having been stated, we come now to the method, the Single Tax, the taking of the annual rent of land -- what it is worth each year for use -- by governmental agency, and the payment out of this fund for those functions which are supported and carried on in common -- maintenance of highways, police and fire protection, public lighting, schools, etc. Now if the value of land were like other values this would not be a good method for the end in view. That is, if a man could take a plot of land as he takes a piece of wood, and fashioning it for use as a commodity give it a value by his labor, there would be no special reason for taxing it at a higher rate than other things, or singling it out from other taxable objects. But land, without the effort of the individual, grows in value with the community's growth, and by what the community does in the way of public improvements. This value of land is a value of community advantage, and the price asked for a piece of land by the owner is the price of community advantage. This advantage may be an excess of production over other and poorer land determined by natural fertility (farm land) or nearness to market or more populous avenues for shopping, or proximity to financial mart, shipping or railroad point (business centers), or because of superior fashionable attractiveness, (residential centers). But all these advantages are social, community-made, not a product of labor, and in the price asked for its sale or use, a manifestation of community-made value. Now in a sense the value of everything may be ascribed to the presence of a community, with an important difference. Land differs in this, that neither in itself nor in its value is it the product of labor, for labor cannot produce more land in answer to demand, but can produce more houses and food and clothing, whence it arises that these things cost less where population is great or increasing, and land is the only thing that costs more.

To tax this land at its true value is to equalize all people-made advantages (which in their manifestation as value attach only to land), and thus secure to every man that equal right to land which has been contended for at the outset of this definition.

From this reform flow many incidental benefits -- greater simplicity of government, greater certainty and economy in taxation, and increased revenues.

But its greatest benefit will be in the abolition of involuntary poverty and the rise of a new civilization. It is not fair to the reader of a definition to urge this larger conclusion, the knowledge of which can come only from a fuller investigation and the dawning upon his apprehension of the light of the new vision. But this conclusion follows as certainly as do the various steps of reasoning which we have endeavored to keep before the reader in this purely elementary definition.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: February 23 - Franklin

But notwithstanding this increase (of population), so vast is the territory of North America, that it will require many ages to settle it fully; and, till it is fully settled, labor will never be cheap here, where no man continues long a laborer for others, but gets a plantation of his own; no man continues long a journeyman to a trade, but goes among these new settlers, and sets up for himself.

— BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind (1751), Sec. 8, Works, Vol. II., p. 225.