The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1921-07-29
COMMON SENSE.
takings.

written especially for The CONNER
cial by Lowe Shearon, 225 Eas
18th Street, New York City,
New York, July 23.-By invitation
of some of my single tax friends
attended as a spectator at an oper
meeting of that organization helt
last night at their New York head
quarters, POI West Thirteenth street
where they discussed the single ta2
and the advisability of putting up 9
ticket for the approaching municipal
election.
Mr. George Lloyd the secretary
(no relation to Lloyd George) sug-
gested fusion with the farmer-labor
party and the committee of forty.
eight and the nomination of Mr.. ]
A. H. Hopkins, chairman of the CO M
mittee of forty-eight, for mayor
Formal action was postponed until
next week.
Although the meeting was not a
very large one it's lack of numbers
was offset by the earnestness of the
members of the organization for the
single tax issue. Mr.. George, however,
unfortunately put all those who OPP
pose the single tax in the category of
economic illiterates," an appellation
that he could more properly apply to
himself and those who think as he
does.
The fallacy in the Henry George
land theory lies in the fact that he
contends that land is common prop
erty whereas, from a sound economic
standpoint, land is not property at
all. 1t is only the improvements on
land that can be properly classed as
property. 1t takes human effort to
create wealth or property, and since
land is not created by human effort
it is not property as our single tax
friends and great many others con-
tend.
The fallacy lies in admitting that
land is property, and since property
in land is wrong, it does not right
that wrong by making it government
property. Governments can and do
profiteer as much or possibly more
than individuals, and The CONNER
cial has very clearly pointed this out
in some of it's recent editorials. You
struck the nail on the head in your
editorial of July II when you said
that Government feeds doctor in
stead of a propaganda who advo-
Gates an enlargement of govern
mental powers.
II there had been free and open
competition, If all factors of industry
were required to enter the game on
the same basis, there could be no
such thing as profiteering, no such
thing as an unearned increment, no
such thing as property in land. Prop
erty would be confined to land i'm
provements and to commodities.
There would be a fair distribution of
wealth and everyone, even Mr.. John
d. Rockefeller, would be better off
than at present.
A single tax on those who monop-
olize land applied to raise revenue
for absolutely necessary government
expenses would be the best form of
taxation, but to seize the so-called un-
earned increment simply for the pur-
pose of dividing it up equally among
all of the people would be the rank
est kind of socialism. If the single
takers will first declare for free and
open competition as the solution of
the industrial problems-competition
made so fierce that it wil1have to be
cooperation to get the best results
and then apply the single tax for rev.
enue only l would be with them tooth
and toenail, but until they do this
they will be like Sancho Panza fight
ing a windmill, a character that my
friend, George Lloyd, brings to my
mind whenever / hear him discussing
the single tax.