LVTFan's Blog

On Wages, from an 1887 weekly ... and relevant in 2012 America

"The wages problem resolves itself into a very simple question, viz.: Which is the better for a community — to have 10,000,000 men earning $2.50 a day, with hours that enable them to read and rest and pass a fair proportion of their time with their families, and at the same time have no millionaires, or to have those 10,000,000 men working fifteen hours a day at $1.50, and have a few score millionaires?"

This was a bit of end-of-column filler from the January 29, 1887, issue of Henry George's weekly newspaper, The Standard, and is attributed to The San Francisco Reporter. 

The Standard was devoted to issues like this, and makes excellent reading in this decade and century.

It might be worth noting that in those days when one spoke of a millionaire, the reference was to someone whose assets totalled over $1 million.  Today, it is commonly used to refer to someone whose annual income is over $1 million.  But you'll notice what workmen's wages were in 1887 -- $1.50 a day is $468 per year*, and likely didn't leave much, if anything, for savings. [6 days a week.]

So which IS better for the community?  The families making $1.50 or $2.50 a day are spending nearly every penny of that, just in order to get by.  The millionaires can only spend so much on the necessities of daily life, plus some generous amount on luxuries.  The rest they will invest, one way or another, and the wise ones, in our current structure, will "invest" in land -- particularly choice urban sites -- and natural resources, since we as a society are so generous about letting the owners of these assets keep most of what those assets earn, despite them having nothing to do with having created those assets, and being in no position to create more in response to demand, which will naturally increase with population!! 

THAT is the problem with our current "generosity."

The spending of the 10 million on the necessities of daily life creates jobs for a lot of other people.  (The portion that goes to their landlords in payment for the right to occupy bits of urban -- or other -- land, DOESN'T create any jobs; it simply enriches the landlord.  I don't begrudge the landlord the portion that relates to the building, or to services he provides, such as, say, a doorman in the city.)

 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 2 -- Jefferies

That any human being should dare to apply to another the epithet "pauper" is, to me, the greatest, the vilest, the most unpardonable crime that could be committed.  Each human being by mere birth has a birthright in this earth and all its productions; and if they do not receive it, then it is they who are injured, and it is not the "pauper," oh, inexpressibly wicked word! — it is the well-to-do who are the criminal classes.

— RICHARD JEFFERIES, The Story of My Heart, Chap. X., p. 122.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: October 1 -- Emerson

Of course, whilst another man has no land, my title to mine, your title to yours, is at once vitiated.

— R. W. EMERSON, Man, the Reformer, Miscellanies, p. 190.

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 Church(es) in Politics

I'm reading through the first issues of Henry George's newspaper, "The Standard," a weekly which was published in NYC beginning in January, 1887.  It was started shortly after the mayoral race of 1886 (chronicled in Post & Leubuscher's December, 1886 book), and in the 4th issue there is a very explicit article about the role that Rome was attempting to play in NYC politics by removing from the priesthood an activist priest, the much-loved Dr. Edward McGlynn, of St. Stephen's Church, on 28th Street in Manhattan, the largest parish in the city.  (This was before the creation of New York City by combining the five boroughs.)

For over 20 years, McGlynn had been living among New York's poor, hearing the confessions of the poor, and knew how hard their lives were.  He knew the situation in Ireland which had brought many of them to the U. S., and when he read Henry George's 1879 book, "Progress and Poverty," he found the cause of their suffering, and saw how to correct the underlying cause of poverty.

The article to which I refer is entitled, "From a Brooklyn Priest"

The Body of the Catholic Clergy Sympathize With Dr. McGlynn

The Brooklyn Times prints an interesting interview with “a well known parish priest” of that city. His name is not given "for obvious reasons,” but those acquainted with the Catholic clerics of Brooklyn have little difficulty in attributing it to the most popular and influential of the Catholic clergy of that city. We make the following extracts:

“The sympathy of the body of the Catholic clergy in New York and Brooklyn is undoubtedly with Dr. McGlynn. I have talked with a great many of my brother priests of both cities on the matter, and almost without exception, they have taken Dr. McGlynn's side in the controversy, though they would be loth to do so publicly for manifest reasons. The sentiment of the body of the Catholic clergy of the two cities is that whatever has been done in Dr. McGlynn's case has been done by inspiration from this side. Of course the question at issue does not at all touch matters of faith. It is purely a question of discipline. The authorities at Rome know little or nothing of the real state of affairs at this side of the Atlantic except as they are inspired by the archbishop of the different provinces. Archbishop Corrigan is in daily communication with Rome by cable, and the views of the controversy between Dr. McGlynn and his superior that are entertained at Rome pending the personal appearance of Dr. McGlynn in the Eternal City, are the views of the archbishop of New York that are telegraphed and written there.

“I do not mean to imply that Archbishop Corrigan would willfully misrepresent the situation here, but I do say that Dr. McGlynn, with all his experience as a priest in the American metropolis, with all his practical knowledge of the condition of the poor and of the working classes in that city, is a better judge of the political needs of the masses in New York than Archbishop Corrigan is, who has spent the greater part of his career as an ecclesiastic in the state of New Jersey; and I hold that Dr. McGlynn and every other Catholic priest has the right to take an active part in the politics of the country. To say that a man of the acknowledged piety and the blameless life of Dr. McGlynn sympathizes with anything that smacks of communism or anarchy is the veriest nonsense to anyone who knows him — and who does not know everything about him today? Dr. McGlynn, as a priest, knows the awful burdens which the laboring classes of New York city have to bear through political misrule and the corrupt combination of capital to oppress them. He knows how anomalous that condition of things is which allows one man to accumulate a hundred millions of dollars within 25 years and compels another to work for a dollar a day, nay, while thousands, anxious for work, are starving for the lack of it. Hence his support of the candidate of the labor party for mayor. Dr. McGlynn did not believe that anarchy or communism would follow in the wake of the election of Henry George to the mayoralty of New York any more than he believed that Mr. George, as the chief executive of the municipal government across the East river could put his land theories into practical operation in the metropolis. Any possible change in the government of New York city must be a change for the better, so far as the poor are concerned.

“If the bishops of the dioceses in the United States were taken by Rome from among the clergy of these dioceses who thoroughly understand the social and political conditions of their people, there would be none of these disciplinary troubles. What sense is there in sending an Italian priest to Canada or an Irish priest to Guatemala as bishop? Or why should a bishop be transferred from a city in the state of New Jersey to preside over the archdiocese of New York when there are many able and holy priests in the metropolis worthy of election to the prelacy who have spent their lives among the masses of the people? In countries where the canonical law of the church is in practical application the parish priests of a diocese in which the bishopric becomes vacant send three names to Rome by majority vote. One is set down as dignus, or worthy, another as dignior, or more worthy, and a third as dignissimus, or most worthy. Any one of the three may be selected, and it sometimes happens that it is the lowest on the list who is chosen. The pope has the absolute power to go outside the list sent to him from the diocese in which a vacancy occurs, but it is a power rarely exercised and only for the most exigent reasons. If the canon law applied in America, which is only yet a missionary country and subject to the propaganda at Rome, Dr. McGlynn could not have been turned out of St. Stephen's church as he has been and his salary would have run on despite his suspension until his case was finally decided at Rome.

“It is most unfortunate that the canon law does not apply in the United States, and that the political, social and educational situation in this country is not better understood at Rome. Wealthy Catholic politicians have too much to say on church policy in this country; and unfortunately that is today the trouble in New York city. The masses of the Catholic clergy say, 'Hands off.' As long as bishops, with whom wealthy politicians are most powerful, practically say who shall be elected to the prelacy in the United States there will be a chance for trouble among the laity.

“I am satisfied that if a majority of the Catholic clergy of the dioceses of New York and Long Island could do it Dr. McGlynn would have been elected archbishop and Archbishop Corrigan would have been allowed to remain in New Jersey. I unhesitatingly say that if the votes of the Catholic clergy in these two dioceses could do it Dr. McGlynn would be restored to St. Stephen's parish tomorrow. No old priest of New York city wanted to succeed Dr. McGlynn in that parish, for they all knew how his congregation idolized him. I am also free to say that if Archbishop Corrigan had not been brought from the state of New Jersey to New York city this trouble would never have occurred.

“Mgr. Preston is the bitterest foe that Dr. McGlynn has in the diocese of New York. I do not mean to imply that the monsignor entertains personal animosity toward the ex-rector of St. Stephen's church, but he is utterly opposed to what Dr. McGlynn stands for as an American citizen. Mgr. Preston is an aristocrat and the associate of aristocrats. Even converts to the Catholic church who know Father Preston well have admitted that the monsignor dearly loves the privileges which attach to church dignitaries in Catholic countries, and is inclined to ape the civil ceremonial of such communities in his intercourse with his flock. Dr. McGlynn is poor, is of the poor and loves to associate with the poor. He is in this respect the antithesis of Mgr. Preston, and the latter is a confidential adviser of Archbishop Corrigan.”

This article, more than anything else I've read, brings home to me the extent to which the rich manage even the Church for the benefit of the rich, to the detriment of the poor.   When a priest who seeks to correct the unjust structures is deprived of his priesthood because he might upset the privileges of the rich, the country and the church are both in trouble.

When churches benefit from contributions from wealthy contributors, they will tend to act to enforce the structures which enrich those wealthy contributors, rather than rocking the boat in any way.  When economic structures funnel the community's wealth into a relative few pockets, the Church will tend to embrace those pockets, not challenge the structures.  Money in elections is not the only corrupting force.

 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: September 13 -- Winstanley

That which is yet wanting on your part to be done is this, to see that the oppressor's power be cast out with his person; and to see that the free possession of the land and liberties be put into the hands of the oppressed commoners of England.

— JERRARD WINSTANLEY,  Epistle Dedicatory to Oliver Cromwell, in

The Law of Freedom in a Platform, or True Magistracy Restored.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: September 12 -- Grant Allen

"But how is it that you allow these chiefs — landlords, don't you call them? — to taboo the soil, and prevent you all from even walking on it? Don't you see that if you choose to combine in a body, and insist upon the recognition of your natural rights — if you determined to make the landlords give up their taboo, and cease from injustice, they'd have to yield to you? And then you could exercise your natural right of going where you pleased, and cultivate the land in common for the public benefit, instead of leaving it as now, to be cultivated anyhow, or turned into waste, for the benefit of the tabooers?"

— GRANT ALLEN, The British Barbarians (Words spoken by Bertram).

The Earth-for-All Calendar: September 8 -- Sir Thomas More

The nobility and gentry and even those holy men, the abbots, not content with the old rents that their farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they, living at their ease, do no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt instead of good.  . . .  As if forest and parks had swallowed up too little of the land, those worthy countrymen turn the best inhabited places into solitude.

 — SIR THOMAS MORE, Utopia (1516), Book I.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: September 6 -- A. R. Wallace

A great landholder may legally convert his whole property into a forest or hunting ground, and expel every human being who has lived upon it.  In a thickly populated country like England, where almost every acre has its owner and occupier, this is a power of legally destroying his fellow-creatures; and that such a power should exist, and be exercised by individuals, in however small a degree, indicates that as regards true social science, we are still in a state of barbarism.

— ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE,The Malay Archipelago, Chap. 40.  Final Note to the book. (1869)

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. 

Stiglitz: "Mitt Romney’s Fair Share"

a few excerpts from: "Mitt Romney’s Fair Share" by Joseph E. Stiglitz | Project Syndicate.

A major theme of the underlying political debate in the United States is the role of the state and the need for collective action. The private sector, while central in a modern economy, cannot ensure its success alone. For example, the financial crisis that began in 2008 demonstrated the need for adequate regulation.

Moreover, beyond effective regulation (including ensuring a level playing field for competition), modern economies are founded on technological innovation, which in turn presupposes basic research funded by government. This is an example of a public good – things from which we all benefit, but that would be undersupplied (or not supplied at all) were we to rely on the private sector.

Conservative politicians in the US underestimate the importance of publicly provided education, technology, and infrastructure. Economies in which government provides these public goods perform far better than those in which it does not.

But public goods must be paid for, and it is imperative that everyone pays their fair share. While there may be disagreement about what that entails, those at the top of the income distribution who pay 15% of their reported income (money accruing in tax shelters in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens may not be reported to US authorities) clearly are not paying their fair share. ...

I have to disagree with the second sentence of this next paragraph.  And I think Stiglitz knows better, if he stops to think about it:

Democracies rely on a spirit of trust and cooperation in paying taxes. If every individual devoted as much energy and resources as the rich do to avoiding their fair share of taxes, the tax system either would collapse, or would have to be replaced by a far more intrusive and coercive scheme. Both alternatives are unacceptable. 

We don't need intrusive or coercive; we just need to start collecting the lion's share of the rent!  Well, I suppose some rent-seekers would find this extremely intrusive -- it intrudes on their habit of self-enrichment by privatizing of what is rightly and logically our PUBLIC treasure, the logical way of financing PUBLIC goods.   And Professor Stiglitz is quite aware of the value of natural resources; he may not be quite as conscious of the value of urban and other well-situated land.   

Our national recordkeeping doesn't even collect the valuations of land and natural resources on any consistent basis! (One could reasonably argue that this failure-to-measure is a form of corruption!)  What we don't measure we can't do anything about.  And the powers that be are quite content with how we do things; the benefits accrue to them!  And several generations of college-educated people know nothing about the issue, which was well known and widely discussed 100 years ago.  (Look into the extensive Single Tax literature and the ideas of Henry George.)

Some more excerpts:

The billionaire investor Warren Buffett argues that he should pay only the taxes that he must, but that there is something fundamentally wrong with a system that taxes his income at a lower rate than his secretary is required to pay. He is right. Romney might be forgiven were he to take a similar position. Indeed, it might be a Nixon-in-China moment: a wealthy politician at the pinnacle of power advocating higher taxes for the rich could change the course of history.

Comments

But Romney has not chosen to do so. He evidently does not recognize that a system that taxes speculation at a lower rate than hard work distorts the economy. Indeed, much of the money that accrues to those at the top is what economists call rents, which arise not from increasing the size of the economic pie, but from grabbing a larger slice of the existing pie.

Those at the top include a disproportionate number of monopolists who increase their income by restricting production and engaging in anti-competitive practices; CEOs who exploit deficiencies in corporate-governance laws to grab a larger share of corporate revenues for themselves (leaving less for workers); and bankers who have engaged in predatory lending and abusive credit-card practices (often targeting poor and middle-class households). It is perhaps no accident that rent-seeking and inequality have increased as top tax rates have fallen, regulations have been eviscerated, and enforcement of existing rules has been weakened: the opportunity and returns from rent-seeking have increased. 

Today, a deficiency of aggregate demand afflicts almost all advanced countries, leading to high unemployment, lower wages, greater inequality, and – coming full, vicious circle – constrained consumption. There is now a growing recognition of the link between inequality and economic instability and weakness.

There is another vicious circle: Economic inequality translates into political inequality, which in turn reinforces the former, including through a tax system that allows people like Romney – who insists that he has been subject to an income-tax rate of “at least 13%” for the last ten years – not to pay their fair share. The resulting economic inequality – a result of politics as much as market forces – contributes to today’s overall economic weakness. 

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.

Devyr: Thoughts addressed to every true and brave man (1882)

Thoughts addressed to every true and brave man:

The Creator either made the land
Or He did not.

He made it for the dukes and lords,
Or He did not.

He made it for the people,
Or He did not.

To pay Rent to earth-lords, is it a DENIAL OF THE
CREATOR?
Or is it not?

Is it hard to know His will?
Or is it not?

If you know His will
And do it not,

Are ye brave and true men,
Or are ye not?

Thomas Ainge Devyr

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 19 -- Adam Smith and Jefferson

Entails are founded upon the most absurd of all propositions, the supposition that every successive generation of men have not an equal right to the earth and to all that it possesses.

— ADAM SMITH, Wealth of Nations, Book III., Chap. 2.

I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living; that the dead have neither power nor rights over it.

— THOMAS JEFFERSON,  Works (edited by Washington), Vol. III., p. 103 (1789)

The Earth-for-All Calendar: August 18 -- Pascal

Do you imagine that it is by some way of nature that your property has passed from your ancestors to you?  Such is not the case. This order is but founded on the simple will and pleasure of legislators, who may have had good reasons for what they did, but not one of their reasons was taken from any natural right of yours over these possessions.

— BLAISE PASCAL (1623-1662), Letter to the young Duke of Roannez,

quoted by Matthew Arnold in Last Essays on Church and Religion, p. 165.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: August 16 -- Necker

The right of inheriting property is a law of men; it was established for their welfare and can only be continued on that condition. He who, at the beginning of society, staked out a piece of ground, and threw there some seed which nature had spontaneously produced elsewhere, could never have obtained on this title alone the exclusive right of holding the ground for his descendants forever.

— NECKER (afterward Louis XVI's Minister of Finance), Essay on the Corn Laws (1775),

Oeuvres Completes, Vol. I., p. 142.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: August 15 -- Rousseau

It was in vain anyone repeated, "I built this well; I gained this spot by my industry." Who gave you the boundaries? it might be objected, and what right have you to demand payment of us for doing what we did not require of you? Are you ignorant that numbers of your fellow-creatures are starving for want of what you possess in superfluity?

— J. J. ROUSSEAU, Essay on the Origin of Inequality Among Men, Part II., p. 20.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: August 7 -- Thorold Rogers and Ede

I can easily imagine a great proprietor of ground rents in the metropolis calling attention to the habitations of the poor, to the evils of overcrowding, and to the scandals which the inquiry reveals, while his own income is greatly increased by the causes which make house-rent dear in London, and decent lodging hardly obtainable by thousands of laborers.

— PROF. THOROLD ROGERS, Work and Wages, Chap. XX., p. 550.

Efforts should be made to prevent the increase of value which is occasioned by the growth of the population of towns enriching private individuals.

— The REV. W. MOORE EDE, Honorary Canon of Durham, The Church and Town Problems, p. 88, note.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: July 31 - John Stuart Mill

The ordinary progress of a society which increases in wealth is at all times to augment the incomes of landlords — to give them both a greater amount and a greater proportion of the wealth of the community, independently of any trouble or outlay incurred by themselves. They grow richer as it were in their sleep, without working, risking or economizing. What claims have they, on the general principles of social justice, to this accession of riches?

— JOHN STUART MILL, Principles of Political Economy, Book V., Chap. 2, Sec. 5

 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: July 30 -- Wallace

Unrestricted private property in land gives to individuals a large proportion of the wealth created by the community at large.

— PROF. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE, Land Nationalization, Chap. VIII., pp. 235-2.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: July 29 -- Ecclesiastes

The profit of the earth is for all.

— Ecclesiastes, V., 9.

The Single Tax -- a succinct 1911 description

THE SINGLE TAX.

Mr. Henry George first formulated this idea, which has grown steadily in favor, in 1879. Single-tax men assert as a fundamental principle that all men are equally entitled to the use of the earth; therefore, no one should be allowed to hold valuable land without paying to the community the value of the privilege. They hold that this is the only rightful source of public revenue, and they would therefore abolish all taxation - local, state and national - except a tax upon the rental value of land exclusive of its improvements, the revenue thus raised to be divided among local, state and general governments, as the revenue from certain direct taxes is now divided between local and state governments.

The single tax would not fall on all land, but only on valuable land, and on that in proportion to its value. It would thus be a tax, not on use or improvements, but on ownership of land, taking what would otherwise go to the landlord as owner.

In accordance with the principle that all men are equally entitled to the use of the earth, they would solve the transportation problem by public ownership and control of all highways, including the roadbeds of railroads, leaving their use equally free to all.

The single-tax system would, they claim, dispense with a horde of tax-gatherers, simplify government, and greatly reduce its cost; give us with all the world that absolute free trade which now exists between the States of the Union: abolish all taxes on private issues of money; take the weight of taxation from agricultural districts, where land has little or no value apart from improvements, and put it upon valuable land, such as city lots and mineral deposits. It would call upon men to contribute for public expenses in proportion to the natural opportunities they monopolize, and make it unprofitable for speculators to hold land unused or only partly used, thus opening to labor unlimited fields of employment, solving the labor problem and abolishing involuntary poverty.

source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20190/20190.txt

The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing: A Manual of Ready Reference
Joseph Triemens, 1911

The Earth-for-All Calendar: July 27 -- John Morley

It will be thought an intolerable thing that men shall derive enormous increments of income from the growth of towns to which they have contributed nothing — that they shall be able to sweep into their coffers what they have not produced — that they shall be able to go on throttling towns, as they are well known to do in some cases. It is impossible to suppose that the system will not be vigorously, powerfully, persistently and successfully attacked.

—JOHN MORLEY, Speech at Forfar, October 4, 1897. The Times, October 5, 1897, p. 5, column 3.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: July 26 -- Walker

The unqualified ownership of land thus established (viz., "in a way which in this age would be regarded as monstrous and corrupt"), enables the land-owning class to reap a wholly unearned benefit at the expense of the general community.

— FRANCIS A. WALKER, Political Economy, Part VI., Chap. 7, Sec. 418.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: July 24 -- Burke

Instead of putting themselves in this odious point of light, one would think they would wish to let Time draw his oblivious veil over the unpleasant modes by which lord ships and demesnes have been acquired in their and almost in all other countries.

— EDMUND BURKE, Letter to Richard Burke, Works, Vol. VI., pp. 75-6.

Bankrupt in California

Has no one in California figured out that when the calf is deprived of mother's milk, starvation is inevitable?

It has taken 34 years, but it is coming about.

Feeding calves grain, or seaweed, or sunflower seeds isn't as smart as letting it consume its natural food.

Taxing wages, sales and buildings isn't as smart as collecting the lion's share -- calf's share, if you will -- of the land rent for public purposes.

Proposition 13 was designed to make sure that the cows' milk was kept for the Irvines, the big landowners, the commercial property owners, and the longtime homeowners, while providing a diminishing fifth of it to the calf and supplementing with grain, seaweed and sunflower seeds.

The calf's digestive system has blown up because it was deprived of its proper food, and "nourished" with stolen fake food.

 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: July 10 -- Goldsmith

Thus fares the land by luxury betrayed,
In nature's simplest charms at first arrayed;
But verging to decline, its splendors rise,
Its vistas strike, its palaces surprise;
While, scourged by famine from the smiling land,
The mournful peasant leads his humble band,
And while he sinks without one arm to save,
The country blooms, a garden and a grave.

— OLIVER GOLDSMITH, The Deserted Village.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: July 9 -- anonymous -- Chants of Labor

From the sweat of their brows the desert blooms,
    And the forest before them falls;
Their labor has builded humble homes,
    And cities with lofty halls.
And the one owns cities and houses and lands,
And the ninety and nine have empty hands.

There are ninety and nine that work and die
    In want and hunger and cold,
That one may live in luxury
    And be lapped in the silken fold!
And ninety and nine in their hovels bare
And one in a palace of riches rare.

— Anonymous, There are Ninety and Nine, Chants of Labor, p.11 (From the Boston Globe.)

1886 and 2012 -- what has changed?

"Our progressive and scheming civilization has developed new forms of speculation and new organizations to give power to capital. Corporations have already become more formidable than the government. Law has clothed them with artificial power without placing proper restriction on its selfish and unjust exercise. There is not adequate security against the frauds they perpetrate. Aggregated capital is managed by boards of directors or trustees whose first business is to advance their own individual interests, and then, so far as consistent with it, the interests of the stockholders."

William Phillips: Labor, Land and Law: A Search for the Missing Wealth of the Working Poor (1886), p. 23

 

A Carbon Tax, Sensible for All - NYTimes.com

A Carbon Tax, Sensible for All - NYTimes.com.

ON Sunday, the best climate policy in the world got even better: British Columbia’s carbon tax — a tax on the carbon content of all fossil fuels burned in the province — increased from $25 to $30 per metric ton of carbon dioxide, making it more expensive to pollute.

This was good news not only for the environment but for nearly everyone who pays taxes in British Columbia, because the carbon tax is used to reduce taxes for individuals and businesses. Thanks to this tax swap, British Columbia has lowered its corporate income tax rate to 10 percent from 12 percent, a rate that is among the lowest in the Group of 8 wealthy nations. Personal income taxes for people earning less than $119,000 per year are now the lowest in Canada, and there are targeted rebates for low-income and rural households.

The only bad news is that this is the last increase scheduled in British Columbia. In our view, the reason is simple: the province is waiting for the rest of North America to catch up so that its tax system will not become unbalanced or put energy-intensive industries at a competitive disadvantage.

Over dinner tonight, Milton Friedman's name came up, and I commented that in about 1978 and again in 2006, a few weeks before his death, Milton Friedman called land value taxation the "least bad" tax, but never lifted a finger in the intervening years to help promote it.

The carbon tax is another good, and wise, and just, tax. 

How many economists will put their shoulder to getting it enacted? 

How many will simply hang out in their ivory towers?

Let’s start with the economics. Substituting a carbon tax for some of our current taxes — on payroll, on investment, on businesses and on workers — is a no-brainer. Why tax good things when you can tax bad things, like emissions? The idea has support from economists across the political spectrum, from Arthur B. Laffer and N. Gregory Mankiw on the right to Peter Orszag and Joseph E. Stiglitz on the left. That’s because economists know that a carbon tax swap can reduce the economic drag created by our current tax system and increase long-run growth by nudging the economy away from consumption and borrowing and toward saving and investment.

...

What would a British Columbia-style carbon tax look like in the United States? According to our calculations, a British Columbia-style $30 carbon tax would generate about $145 billion a year in the United States. That could be used to reduce individual and corporate income taxes by 10 percent, and afterward there would still be $35 billion left over.

Why on earth should the privilege to pollute OUR air be be given away for free, or for less than the social costs it imposes on us?  Who benefits from such a system?

A carbon tax makes sense whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, a climate change skeptic or a believer, a conservative or a conservationist (or both). We can move past the partisan fireworks over global warming by turning British Columbia’s carbon tax into a made-in-America solution.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: June 30

Yes, ye may fill your garners, ye that reap
The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good
In senseless riot; but ye will not find
In feast or in the chase, in song or dance,
A liberty like his, who, unimpeached
Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong,
Appropriates nature as his Father's work,
And has a richer use of yours than you.

— COWPER, The Task, Book VI.

Florence A. Burleigh: Who Are the Anarchists? (1902)

Another article from the author of the "Property Rights" article below.  It is in the same (1902) volume of The Railroad Trainman.

Who Are the Anarchists?
Florence A. Burleigh
1902
The Railroad Trainman

According to the popular idea and the ordinary daily paper, an anarchist is a person who goes about the world with a bomb hidden in each pocket and a pistol in his hand, seeking whom he may devour.  By the same warrant anarchism is a synonym for murder or assassination.  Especially during these last few months has the subject of anarchism been discussed more or less hysterically by all kinds of people and in all kinds of periodicals.  It is well, therefore, to look at the subject calmly, and without prejudice, in order that we may fully understand what real anarchism is, what its upholders hope, or wish to do, and also ask, incidentally, if the real anarchists are in the anarchist camp.

Let me state at the outset that I do not believe that any school of anarchism will ever be possible, even if it were just. No anarchist has ever, to my knowledge, talked for any length of time without admitting the necessity among citizens of some kind of a settlement of questions relating to public policy, even though they don't call it government. No anarchist has ever, to my knowledge, proposed any solution of the land question that did not involve injustice. I, therefore, am not writing from the standpoint of a supporter of the much-maligned anarchism, but from the standpoint of one who likes fair play and a clear understanding of a proposed system of social life which must be reckoned with. Let me say, also, that I number among my acquaintances and friends several avowed anarchists who are conscientious, kind, peace-loving and' thoroughly good citizens — men and women who would, and do, sacrifice much of their own comfort and convenience to help their fellowmen, who deprecate as much as any one possibly can such a deed as the killing of any human being.

That there are anarchists who have used this cowardly, as well as useless way of attempting to abolish government, is true, but that all the advice to murder or all the deeds of murder are done by anarchists is not true.

Many people who are not anarchists advocate the killing of certain classes of people, and to class all anarchists as assassins or instigators of assassination, is as unjust as it is untrue. The unpopular anarchists are usually poor and of a "lower class" of society, and are therefore under the ban whatever they do. The popular anarchists sit in high places and are respected citizens, using the word anarchist in its popular meaning as one who acts contrary to existing laws and not in its strictly correct sense, meaning one who believes in no government. For an anarchist is really one who holds that when all barriers are removed and every one is free to do what seems to him right he will not wish to do harm to any human being; that absolute freedom brings with it the possibility for every one to be kind and just to his fellowmen and that as government to a greater or less degree limits the freedom of the individual it must be unjust in the nature of the case and that it is also unnecessary, as human nature is ever good when let alone.

There are doubtless anarchists who say — as they believe — that a social revolution is coming in this country; a revolution which may or may not be bloody; that it will be brought on by the continued injustice of those in power, and that force will be used by the plutocrats — a belief that is not dissipated by the building and enlarging of armories and militia and such affairs as that at Latimer — and, therefore, the oppressed must be ready to use force in return. But even those who say this advise force only for self-defence. But the belief in a coming revolution is not confined to anarchists, but is shared by men and women of other economic schools, and does not necessarily imply in either case that the revolution will come in any other way than as a natural result of causes. Society is indeed on a wrong basis, and it seems as though nothing but a miracle could save it from a revolution which we pray may be a peaceful one. Men and women of a despised or down-trodden race, or class, are sometimes arrested and punished for acts which are entirely harmless, while those in high places may act entirely in opposition to both statute and moral law and still be looked up to.

A few months ago a poor, deluded, ignorant fellow took the most sacred thing in the world — a human life. What might have been his motive, or whose life it was, is for the moment not essential. Suffice it to say he killed a brother man and gave as an excuse that the deed was done because of a speech he had recently heard from a noted anarchist, which speech had been also heard by a vigilant police and not considered "inflammatory." But immediately after the deed was done there were cries from all classes of people, including followers of the Great Teacher, not only demanding that he be lynched on the spot, and in other ways trying to "stamp out anarchy by anarchy," but calling for dire punishment to be meted out to the woman who had delivered the lecture in question and who was hunted out and imprisoned for a time. The man had committed a crime and was punished according to law, but the woman had committed no crime, yet was threatened with violence from those who professed the highest respect for law. Both of these people belonged to an unpopular class. I am not excusing murder, or even apologizing for it; murder in all its forms, whether done by an ignorant, crazy man, or any one else, whether the murdered be one man or a thousand men, whether done in passion or in battle, Is a terrible crime. I only wish to call attention to the fact that all the defying of law and morals is not confined to the class called anarchists.

At the same time that this tragedy was enacting, Judges were issuing illegal injunctions; negroes were being burned at the stake for crimes which there was no proof they had committed — but their lynchers were "respectable" men — trust companies were evading the laws, and city, state and national officials were breaking laws with impunity.

These examples are given merely to show that in public opinion what is legal and what is not, or what is "anarchy," or what is not, depends upon the person and not the deed. No wonder justice is represented with blinded eyes — to shut out the crimes committed in her name. I do not wish to excuse wrong-doing of any kind, but only to point out the growth of class feeling in this country; the lapse from the fundamental principles of equality upon which our fore-fathers prided themselves.

Rev. John R. Crosser said recently: "I am not afraid that the anarchy on Carroll avenue will ever destroy our institutions. It is too black and ugly. The anarchy to be found on the boulevards is the most dangerous, the anarchy which buys a legislature. Anarchy cannot be put down with laws. We can learn nothing from European countries in this regard, except what not to do. We must be careful not to go too far In annihilating the class of anarchists found on Carroll avenue, lest we injure many others who really have the best Interests of our country at heart."

It is not anarchy, then, which some people are trying to stamp out, but the claim of the oppressed, even though rudely expressed, and roughly comprehended, for equal rights. The only governments which many people know about are those which oppress certain classes and give special privileges to others. The way to "stamp out anarchy" is not to pass stringent laws against allowing anarchists to come to this country or to suppress meetings at which anarchism may be discussed. It is only by discussion that we learn the truth. The way to "stamp out anarchy" is to repeal all laws granting special privileges and to accord equal justice to all men.

Anarchy, whether it be among the avowed anarchists or those who sit in legislatures, or wear broadcloth bought with the lives and sufferings of their fellowmen, can be abolished only by equal freedom and equal justice. No suppression of free speech or laws against the coming to this country of anarchists will ever avail except to increase the number and zeal of those of whom the government would be rid.

But, it may be said: "'Inflammatory speeches' cannot be allowed because as a result someone with a weak mind may be influenced thereby to commit some crime." Is not the reason deeper than that? The spirit of war — of killing — is rampant all over the country. Even Christian ministers advocate killing — not of one man, but of many, when they counsel war and rejoice when the newspapers announce, the murder by their sons and friends of their fellowmen who live in far away Islands.

Louis F. Post says in The Public: "The gospel of strenuous life has been preached from high places. Its ideal was war. This was welcomed for its own sake, as inspiring robust ambitions and giving strength to character. War was described as making heroes, and peace milksops. Throughout this strenuous life there ran rivulets of human blood, and over it there hung the heavy shadow of wholesale murder. It was to be the middle age tournament come again, but with slaughter enough to have turned the stomach of your middle age knight. And in this sanguinary spirit an imperial destiny was working out. The first republic of Asia had been strangled in infancy by the first republic of America. * * * The American republic, turning its back upon its ideals of liberty and peace, was exchanging the substance of world influence for the reputation of world power. * * * In the common mind a spirit of anarchy was being generated in the name and by the methods of the strenuous life."

The official reports state that 100,000 people go insane annually in Italy from hunger, and many are on the verge of starvation all their lives. Italy is creating anarchists by her unjust laws and nothing but a change of laws giving her people a chance to earn a living and to be free will "stamp out anarchy" there. In our own country over 90% of the people possess about 25% of the wealth, leaving the other 75% of wealth for only 10% of the people. Is it any wonder that anarchy is growing among this 90%? It is unnecessary to say that this 10% will do everything in their power to retain possession of their "property," which means, rather, their privilege to tax the other 90%. They will stop at nothing, for they know the power of the masses should they ever realize how great it is and what is the cause of their condition.

We have, then, three classes of anarchists;

• first, the poor, despised ones who are preyed upon and hunted down and imprisoned on the least provocation:
• second, the rich, respected ones who would indignantly repel the name anarchist, but who prey upon the first kind and make them what they are; who continually oppress them legally and illegally and who hold over them the whip of starvation;
• the third class is composed of intelligent, conscientious, peaceful men and women who believe that in the absence of statute law people will not only not wish to injure their fellowmen but will do all they can to assist them; who are opposed to all kinds of violence and are willing and expect to wait for their "good time coming" a long time. No one deprecates more than these people the killing of any human being, whether he be king, president or one of the plain people. They hold human life to be the most sacred thing in the world, unless it be human freedom.

Which of these classes is the dangerous one?

The Earth-for-All Calendar: June 19 -- John Stuart Mill

The greatest "burthen on land is the landlords."

— JOHN STUART MILL, Elements of Political Economy, Book II., Chap. 2, Sec. 6.

License fees for every worker, or tax land value for revenue?

Dewey tells bands to pay up

Dewey Beach — The Town of Dewey Beach [Delaware] is marching to the beat of its own drum: Town officials have imposed a fee of $109 to all bands that play in town. No other town in the Cape Region imposes such a law. “This is just a matter of fairness,” said Mayor Diane Hanson.
...
Hanson said if her cleaning lady has to buy a business license, it is fair to require bands to buy one as well.

Dewey Beach, Delaware, prides itself on not having a property tax.  This forces it to rely on taxes which are far less just and less logical than a simple tax on land value would be -- including a licensing fee for anyone who works in Dewey Beach!

And if one lets one's license skip a year, and then needs it again, one must pay for the year one didn't have a customer there, as well as the years in which one does.

Why?  Well, perhaps the explanation is partially related to the fact that one company owns an amazing amount of the land in Dewey Beach, and it is rented out on ground leases which are currently at a very low level --  say, $550 to $650 per year -- and whose end comes in about 11 to 14 years.  Many of these lots sell for $600,000 or more, when one comes on the market; those in the ocean block perhaps significantly more.  The County last assessed the land in the late 1960s.  County taxes on the cottages (excluding the land), which typically sell for $200,000 or less because they are aging and must be removed at the end of the lease, run from $300 to $900 a year (and the county tax is mostly for the school district).   In neighboring Rehoboth Beach, city taxes typically run about 1/4 of county taxes, though the relationship is not constant because one relies on a 1960s assessment, the other on a 1970s one!!

Dewey Beach collects something each year from property owners to restore the beaches, in case there is erosion that the federal government or state government won't pay to correct, but the beaches were renourished this past winter, at no expense to the property owners.   According to an article from a week or two ago, the tax is $0.40 per $100 of assessed value.  That article says, "A property in Dewey Beach with an assessed value of $200,000 would pay a total of $240 each year in taxes – $80 for beach replenishment and $160 for capital improvements."  But it doesn't seem to realize that the only homes with assessed values of $200,000 are valued by their sellers at over $6 million!  $80 is trivial to the owner of those $6 million oceanfront homes.

But to the typical worker in Dewey Beach, the $109 annual license to work within the borders is not so trivial.

Does it make sense to tax workers?  Or is there a better tax base than productive activity?  What taxes work best?  Which taxes do the least damage?

Is working a privilege, or a right?  I understand licensing doctors, nurses, lawyers and the like; I don't understand licensing singers, painters, waiters, and other workers.

Land value taxation is the way to go.

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!

The Earth-for-All Calendar: June 13 -- Paine and Marmontel

Landed monopoly has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance.

— THOMAS PAINE, Agrarian Justice, Paine's Writings, Vol. III., p. 331.

In the country the more rich people there are, the less wealth there is.

— MARMONTEL, Address in Favor of the Peasants of the North (1757), Oeuvres, Vol. X., p. 70.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: June 12 -- Goldsmith

The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied —
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage and hounds;
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken cloth
Has robbed the neighboring fields of half their growth;
His seat where solitary sports are seen
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies,
While thus the land adorned for pleasure all
In barren splendor feebly waits the fall.

— OLIVER GOLDSMITH, The Deserted Village.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: June 9 -- John Stuart Mill

The essential principle of property being to assure to all persons what they have produced by their labor and accumulated by their abstinence, this principle cannot apply to what is not the product of labor, the raw material of the earth.

— JOHN STUART MILL, Political Economy, Book II., Chap. 2, Sec. 5.

When the "sacredness of property" is talked of, it should always be remembered that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property.

— JOHN STUART MILL, Political Economy, Book II., Chap. 2, Sec. 6.

From "The Price of Inequality: Joseph Stiglitz on the 1 Percent Problem | Vanity Fair

This excerpt makes some important points about a number of topics this blog focuses on:

• why wealth and income concentration are not good for the economy;
• rent and rent-seeking behavior 
• the extent to which the financial sector is absorbing the profits made by the productive sectors of our economy

I look forward to reading the book.  I'll be curious to see whether Professor Stiglitz gets into what we can do via reforming our tax system to reduce the amount of rent that is available for private and corporate rent-seekers.  Treat rent as our COMMON asset... Natural Public Revenue!!  Don't leave it there for corporations to privatize.

From The Price of Inequality: Joseph Stiglitz on the 1 Percent Problem | Politics | Vanity Fair.

It is no accident that the periods in which the broadest cross sections of Americans have reported higher net incomes — when inequality has been reduced, partly as a result of progressive taxation — have been the periods in which the U.S. economy has grown the fastest. It is likewise no accident that the current recession, like the Great Depression, was preceded by large increases in inequality. When too much money is concentrated at the top of society, spending by the average American is necessarily reduced — or at least it will be in the absence of some artificial prop. Moving money from the bottom to the top lowers consumption because higher-income individuals consume, as a fraction of their income, less than lower-income individuals do.

In our imaginations, it doesn’t always seem as if this is the case, because spending by the wealthy is so conspicuous. Just look at the color photographs in the back pages of the weekend Wall Street Journal of houses for sale. But the phenomenon makes sense when you do the math. Consider someone like Mitt Romney, whose income in 2010 was $21.7 million. Even if Romney chose to live a much more indulgent lifestyle, he would spend only a fraction of that sum in a typical year to support himself and his wife in their several homes. But take the same amount of money and divide it among 500 people — say, in the form of jobs paying $43,400 apiece — and you’ll find that almost all of the money gets spent.

The relationship is straightforward and ironclad: as more money becomes concentrated at the top, aggregate demand goes into a decline. Unless something else happens by way of intervention, total demand in the economy will be less than what the economy is capable of supplying — and that means that there will be growing unemployment, which will dampen demand even further. In the 1990s that “something else” was the tech bubble. In the first dec­ade of the 21st century, it was the housing bubble. Today, the only recourse, amid deep recession, is government spending — which is exactly what those at the top are now hoping to curb.

The “Rent Seeking” Problem

Here I need to resort to a bit of economic jargon. The word “rent” was originally used, and still is, to describe what someone received for the use of a piece of his land — it’s the return obtained by virtue of ownership, and not because of anything one actually does or produces. This stands in contrast to “wages,” for example, which connotes compensation for the labor that workers provide. The term “rent” was eventually extended to include monopoly profits — the income that one receives simply from the control of a monopoly. In time, the meaning was expanded still further to include the returns on other kinds of ownership claims. If the government gave a company the exclusive right to import a certain amount of a certain good, such as sugar, then the extra return was called a “quota rent.” The acquisition of rights to mine or drill produces a form of rent. So does preferential tax treatment for special interests. In a broad sense, “rent seeking” defines many of the ways by which our current political process helps the rich at the expense of everyone else, including

• transfers and subsidies from the government,
• laws that make the marketplace less competitive,
• laws that allow C.E.O.’s to take a disproportionate share of corporate revenue (though Dodd-Frank has made matters better by requiring a non-binding shareholder vote on compensation at least once every three years), and
• laws that permit corporations to make profits as they degrade the environment.

The magnitude of “rent seeking” in our economy, while hard to quantify, is clearly enormous. Individuals and corporations that excel at rent seeking are handsomely rewarded. The financial industry, which now largely functions as a market in speculation rather than a tool for promoting true economic productivity, is the rent-seeking sector par excellence. Rent seeking goes beyond speculation. The financial sector also gets rents out of its domination of the means of payment — the exorbitant credit- and debit-card fees and also the less well-known fees charged to merchants and passed on, eventually, to consumers. The money it siphons from poor and middle-class Americans through predatory lending practices can be thought of as rents. In recent years, the financial sector has accounted for some 40 percent of all corporate profits. This does not mean that its social contribution sneaks into the plus column, or comes even close. The crisis showed how it could wreak havoc on the economy. In a rent-seeking economy such as ours has become, private returns and social returns are badly out of whack.

In their simplest form, rents are nothing more than re-distributions from one part of society to the rent seekers. Much of the inequality in our economy has been the result of rent seeking, because, to a significant degree, rent seeking re-distributes money from those at the bottom to those at the top.

But there is a broader economic consequence: the fight to acquire rents is at best a zero-sum activity. Rent seeking makes nothing grow. Efforts are directed toward getting a larger share of the pie rather than increasing the size of the pie. But it’s worse than that: rent seeking distorts resource allocations and makes the economy weaker. It is a centripetal force: the rewards of rent seeking become so outsize that more and more energy is directed toward it, at the expense of everything else. Countries rich in natural resources are infamous for rent-seeking activities. It’s far easier to get rich in these places by getting access to resources at favorable terms than by producing goods or services that benefit people and increase productivity. That’s why these economies have done so badly, in spite of their seeming wealth. It’s easy to scoff and say: We’re not Nigeria, we’re not Congo. But the rent-seeking dynamic is the same.

LVTfan here: Think what would happen if we SOCIALIZED rents, and substituted them as our revenue source for all the taxes we pay ... sales taxes, wage taxes, building taxes, excise taxes ... 

Recall what Leona Helmsley told us:  "WE don't pay taxes.  The little people pay taxes."  Think what a weight would be lifted off our economy if those taxes were taken off the produces of labor, and put onto Rent, in all its forms! 

Royalties on Natural Resources on Federal Lands, dropping from 6% to 2%

S. 1144, Soda Ash Competition Act

As introduced on June 6, 2011

S. 1144 would require the Department of the Interior (DOI) to charge a 2 percent royalty on the value of soda ash produced on federal lands through 2016. Under current law, CBO expects that the royalty rate would remain at 6 percent over that period. CBO estimates that implementing S. 1144 would reduce net federal offsetting receipts from soda ash royalties by $75 million over the 2013-2016 period; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures apply. Enacting S. 1144 would not affect revenues.

CUI BONO?   Seems to me that the states involved lose revenue and the Federal Government loses revenue!  What a deal!!! A lose, lose, lose situation! Whose resources are we talking about anyway?  (Hint: corporations are not we-the-people!  Aren't WE nice to give THEM low royalties on OUR natural resources?)

 

Here's more from the CBO paper; I've omitted the tables because they don't reproduce well:

S. 1144 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA).

ESTIMATED COST TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
The estimated budgetary impact of S. 1144 is shown in the following table. The costs of this legislation fall within budget function 300 (natural resources and environment).

By Fiscal Year, in Millions of Dollars
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2013-2017  2013-2022
CHANGES IN DIRECT SPENDING
Estimated Budget Authority 30 15 15 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 75 75
Estimated Outlays 30 15 15 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 75 75

BASIS OF ESTIMATE
For this estimate, CBO assumes that the legislation will be enacted near the end of 2012.

S. 1144 would reduce the royalty rate on the value of soda ash produced on federal lands from 6 percent to 2 percent over the 2013-2016 period. Based on information from the Bureau of Land Management, CBO expects that, under the bill, firms that paid 6 percent in royalties during 2012 would receive refunds in 2013 of any amounts in excess of the 2 percent rate established by the bill. In addition, because CBO expects that royalty rates charged for soda ash production on state and private lands would be higher than 2 percent, we also expect that, under the bill, the amount of soda ash produced on federal lands would be higher over the next four years than it would be under current law. However, CBO estimates that any increase in production would only partially offset the loss of receipts from lowering the royalty rate through 2016.

In 2011, the last time the royalty rate was set at 2 percent, firms produced 8.8 million tons of soda ash on federal lands and paid royalties totaling $22 million. Based on information from DOI regarding soda ash production and royalty collections through the first half of 2012 (when the royalty rate increased to 6 percent), CBO estimates that firms will produce 7.2 million tons of soda ash on federal lands in 2012 (a decline of roughly 20 percent from 2011) and will pay gross royalties totaling $44 million (double the amount collected in 2011). Thus, under current law, we estimate that, after payments to states of half the gross proceeds, net receipts to the federal government in 2012 will total $22 million. If S. 1144 is enacted, we expect that DOI would refund about $15 million of that amount to firms in 2013. CBO also estimates that implementing the bill would reduce receipts in each year over the 2013-2016 period by a similar amount. In total, CBO estimates that enacting S. 1144 would reduce net offsetting receipts from soda ash royalties by $75 million over the 2013-2016 period.

PAY-AS-YOU-GO CONSIDERATIONS

The Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 establishes budget-reporting and enforcement
procedures for legislation affecting direct spending or revenues. The net changes in outlays
that are subject to those pay-as-you-go procedures are shown in the following table.

CBO Estimate of Pay-As-You-Go Effects for S. 1144 as introduced on June 6, 2011
By Fiscal Year, in Millions of Dollars
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2012-2017  2012-2022
NET INCREASE OR DECREASE (-) IN THE DEFICIT
Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Impact 0 30 15 15 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 75 75
3
INTERGOVERNMENTAL AND PRIVATE-SECTOR IMPACT
S. 1144 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in UMRA.
The royalty reduction required by the bill would temporarily reduce federal payments to California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming by a total of $75 million over the 2013-2016 period.

 
PREVIOUS CBO COST ESTIMATE
On June 5, 2012, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for H.R. 1192, the Soda Ash Royalty Extension, Job Creation, and Export Enhancement Act of 2012, as ordered reported by the House Committee on National Resources on May 16, 2012. S. 1144 is similar to H.R. 1192, and the CBO cost estimates are the same for those bills.

ESTIMATE PREPARED BY:
Federal Costs: Jeff LaFave
Impact on State, Local, and Tribal Governments: Melissa Merrell
Impact on the Private Sector: Amy Petz

ESTIMATE APPROVED BY:
Theresa Gullo, Deputy Assistant Director for Budget Analysis

The Earth-for-All Calendar: May 28 -- Froude

To treat land, with the present privileges attached to the possession of it, as an article of sale, to be passed from hand to hand in the market like other commodities, is an arrangement not likely to be permanent either in Ireland or elsewhere.

— J. A. FROUDE, Ireland, Nineteenth Century, September, 1880, p. 369.

Henry George's teaching in a nutshell

Henry George's teaching in a nutshell: To deprive men of the power to take what belongs to others.

-- From The Beacon, an Australian Single Tax journal, quoted in "The New Earth," (1899)

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: May 12 -- Adam Smith

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.

— ADAM SMITH, Wealth of Nations, Book I., Chap. 6.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: May 11 -- Gibbon

But the colony multiplies, while the space still continues the same, the common rights, the equal inheritance of mankind, are engrossed by the bold and crafty; each field and forest is circumscribed by the landmarks of a jealous master. . . . In the progress from primitive equity to final injustice the steps are silent, the shades are almost imperceptible, and the absolute monopoly is guarded by positive laws and artificial reason.

— EDWARD GIBBON, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,

Chap. XLIV., Sec. 2.

 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: May 3 -- Horace Greeley

Wherever the ownership of the soil is so engrossed by a small part of the community that the far larger number are compelled to pay whatever the few may see fit to exact for the privilege of occupying and cultivating the earth, there is something very like slavery.

— HORACE GREELEY, Slavery at Home, in Hints Toward Reforms (1845), pp. 354-5.

 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: April 30 -- Henry George

Place one hundred men on an island from which there is no escape, and whether you make one of these men the absolute owner of the other ninety-nine, or the absolute owner of the soil of the island, will make no difference either to him or to them.

— HENRY GEORGE, Progress and Poverty, Book VII., Chap. 2, p. 312.

The Earth-for-All Calendar: April 29 -- Newman

Here is the fundamental error, the crude and monstrous assumption, that the land which God has given to our nation, is or can be the private property of anyone. It is a usurpation exactly similar to that of slavery.

— PROF. F. W. NEWMAN, Lectures on Political Economy (1851), Lecture VI., p. 533.

 

The Earth-for-All Calendar: April 23 -- Simon Newcomb

It is well known that these materials and agencies, as fast as they become available, are in the main appropriated by individuals, through the agency or consent of the government, and are then held as private property. Such is the case with the soil and the minerals beneath it. The owners of this property charge as much for the use of it as if it were their own creation, and not that of nature.

— PROF. SIMON NEWCOMB, The Labor Question, North American Review, July, 1870, p. 151.

a link and a longer except follow ...