The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-11-08
THE SINGLE-TAX THEORY.
The Creates FaIIacy That Has Ever
Been Paraded as Philanthropy.

To the Editor Of the indianapolis Journal:
The death of Henry George has again
drawn attention to his peculiar theory. The
newspapers published articles and communi-
cations in reference to it, and the Journal
expressed the view that the single tax would
never become popular because people would
never entertain the idea to tax equally the
ground upon which the hut of the poor and
the ground upon which the palace of the
rich stand. The Journal might have added
that the proposition to let all personal prop
erty-as, for instance, the rolling stock of
railroad-go untaxed would also never be-
come popular. However, it would not be
fair to judge theory or a remedy by it's
popularity or unpopularity. 1t should be
judged by an entirely different criterion.
The proper question in such case would be-:
VIII the proposed remedy have the effect
desired or foreseen by the author? The de-
gree Of possibility or probability with which
the proposed remedy will bring forth the
desired effect is the proper criterion of it's
value.
What is the effect which Henry George
expects of the single tax? In Progress
and Poverty" Book VI, Chapter 2, he says:
I'VE must make land common property"
He then devotes a number of chapters in
Book VII to an effort to show the evil and
the injustice of private property in land.
One may judge from this that George was
Socialist. Let us turn, however, to Book
VIII, Chapter 2. and we find the following:
Il do not propose either to purchase or to
confiscate private property in land. =
Let the individuals who now hold it still
retain, II they want to, possession of what
they are pleased to call their land. Let
them buy and sell and bequeath it. Let
them continue to cali it their land We
may safely leave them the shell if we take
the kernel. 1t is not necessary TO conts-
cate land, 1T is only necessary - confiscate
rent. What l propose is TO appropriate
rent by taxation. In this way the safe may
become the universal landlord without call
ing herself so, and without assuming a
single new function, In form, the owner
ship of the land would remain just as now:
No owner of land need be dispossessed, and
no restriction need be placed upon the
amount of land any one could hold; for,
rent being taken by the state in taxes,
land would be really common property
Now, in the name of logic, in the name
of reason, l ask whether this common or
ton. Not ono of the characteristics Of
private ownership which is not to remain;
Individual possession, individual use, the
right to hold and to use as much land as
one pleases, the right and the possibility of
employing wage labor for the use of it, the
unlimited right to ALLEVIATE it; in the name
of common sense, Task any single-taxer to
snow me one. only one, characteristic Of
common ownership.
Rent, however, as George, says, is taken.
is confiscated only the shell is left to the
owner. If George had not borrowed so
much from Anticipated writings, if he had
not initiated the style of other priorists,
principle and then to investigate the phe-
nomeha with the intention not to find the
law, but to prove the truth of the law held
priori to be true he would have come to
other conclusions. He would not have taken
Ricardo's obsolete theory of land values
absolutely correct and fitting our condi-
fATac. he -A1,1I fl1A L.,
tionship between interest and rent, and
would have found that land value in our
days is rent capitalized. He would not have
drawn so sharply the line between capital
and land for whatever difference there may
he between these two factors of production
under another social system, land that is
private property, is bought and sold and
speculated with is a species of capital at
least treated as such, and therefore rent has
the tendency to become equal to the pre-
vailing rate of interest. The effect of pri-
vate ownership of land is therefore not
what Henry George believes it to be, and it
is not much different from the effect of pri-
But can rent be confiseated by taxation?
1t can If such tax cannot be shifted 1t
cannot if the tax can be shifted. George
says il cannot be shifted, but he fails to
prove it; he does not even attempt to prove
it. 1t may be difficult to prove the shifting
of the land tax, if the land is used by the
owner himself, but, everyday occurrences
show us that in all cases where the land
lord and the possessor are different persons
the tax is shifted from the lessor upon the
lessee. To prove the temperance of the
tax in the price of the product and its Shift
ing upon the consumer is too complicated a
matter, and l shall not attempt it here. What
l want to say, however. is this: That we
are at present not so very far from Georges
land tax as he believes. The rate of tax
alton is seldom below 2 per cent; the rate
of interest is, according to circumstanc
between 3 and s per cent; rent, therefore,
after elimination of taxes and costs of re-
pairs and improvements, is seldom more
than between and 6 per cent of the value
of the land or the capital invested. There
fore. Georges single land tax means, prac-
ticaily, not more than doubling or treping
the present tax on bare land and abolish
ing all other taxes; also, those on land inn
provements. 1t seems to me that it sounds
absurd to believe that this would be such
a revolutionary measure that it would turn
private ownership of land into common
ownership and that generally speaking, it
would turn hell into paradise.
But let us suppose the single tax would
have the effect of making land common
property in the manner of Henry Georges
the selling price of land Would fall; land
speculation would receive it's death blow:
land monopolization would no longer pay.
Millions and millions of acres would be
abandoned by their present owners or sold
10 settlers upon nominal terms" (See Book
effect of such a change upon the labor mar
ket Competition would no longer be one
sided, as now. Instead of laborers com
pSllIlS Will tdCn OCQ6r IOT eDlplOyHenI ana
in their competition cutting down wages to
the point of bare subsistence employers
would everywhere be competing for la
borers, and wages would rise to the
fair earnings of labor" (Same chapter)
The cause he further says, lis on the
surface. One man will not work for anoth-
er for less than his labor will really yield
when he can go upon the next quarter sec
tor and take up farm for himself. The
average man will not work for an employer
tor less, all things considered, than he can
earn by working for himself; nor yet will
he work for himself for less than he can
earn by working for an employer, and
from such natural opportunities as are free
to it must fix the wages which labor every
where gets. (Book III, Chapter g. In
the same chapter, he states the law of
wages to be this: Wages depend uoOn the
margin of production, or upon the produce
which labor can obtain at the highest POINT
of natural productiveness open to it with
that this law of wages fits no actual con-
dition, because in our times there is no
productive land which can be had for the
taking of 1t. 1t is therefore fallacy It fits
a condition which George has in his mind,
q condition which he believes to be the eff
feet of his single tax, but which has no
actual existence and which cannot even be
by abolishing private ownership
in land. For, even if access TO land end
to all that is below its surface can be had
without payment of rent if every one
has access to natural opportunities,
as George calls it, yet it takes a
little more in our capitalstic
into detail, it is enough 10 say that in our
time the use of natural opportunities with
out capital is an impC ssibility and q bare
piece of land does not give food, shelter and