George and the Single Tax

I ND I V I D U ALL I B E R T Y 235 All that Mr. Horr has to say about the difficulty of sustain.. ingan occupancy-and-tlse system by jury decisions is based on silly and gratuitous assumptions. In ·the:6.rst place, it is pure .assumption to say that juries will he recruited solely from tax payers. No believer in the original formaf jury trial as ex plained by Spooner ever advanced such a proposition. In. the second place, it is pure assumption to say that,· when taxation is voluntary, only land-owners will pay taxes, because ,they alonebeneht by the expend~ture of th~ taxes. If is nottru~ that.they alone benefit. Every individual .benefits whose life, liberty, and· property is protected. In the third place, it is pure assumption to say that juror~ do not, in the main, render verdicts in accordance with their own .col1ceptions of equity and. social Jiving. A jury of thieves is quite as likely asa jury of honest men to convict a prisoner justly accused of theft. Now, no advocate ofoccupancy ..and-use tenure of land believes that. it can be put in force, until as a theory· it has been as generally, or almost as generally, seen and accepted as is the prevailing theory of ordinary privateprpperty. But, when the theory has.heen thus accepted, jurors may be relied on, .• in the" main, to render verdicts inaG£Qrdance therewith, no matter what their status or situation in life. Were it not ,so, no society would be possible.

Mr. Horr :6.nallydefends the Single Tax, against theobjec tion that under. it the .1a.nd occupant. "is at! the mercy of the community, by.claiming l that l;l;changesdue to social. growth which are·just as.inevitable as any other phenomena of nature must be submitted·to." I suppose, then, that, because I must submit to the tornado that destroys my crop, I must also sub mit: to the·.depredations·of· people who choose to settle in my vicinity and then rob me of a part of my crop by what they call a tax on my land value. Well, of course I must, if my fellow-citizens all.turn· thieves,-that ·is, Single Taxers. Con sequently I .amtrying to persuade them to be honest. GEORGE AND THE SINGLE TAX Following are some fragmentary paragraphs relating to .different .phases of· .the. Single Tax: and ·to Henry 2.36 INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY George's perplexities concerning his economic theories. The editor of Liberty· took great delight in pointing out his inconsistencies: SOME of Henry George's correspondents have been pestering him a good deal with embarrassing questions as to what. will become, under his system, of the home of a man who has built a house upon a bit of land which afterwards so rises in value that he cannot afford to pay the taxes on it. Unable to deny that such a man would be as summarily evicted by the government landlord as is the Irish farmer in arrears by the individual landlord, and yet afraid to squarely admit it, Mr.

George has twisted and turned and doubled and dodged, at temptirtg to shield himself by all sorts .of irrelevant considera tions, until at last he is reduced to asking in rejoinder if this argument has not U a great deal of the flavor of the Georgia deacon's denunciation of abolitionists because they wanted to deprive the widow Smith of her solitary Cnigger,' her only means of support." That is, Mr. George virtually asserts that the claim to own a human beihg is no more indefensible than the claim of the laborer to own the house he has built and to the unincumbered and indefinitt; use of whatever site he may have selected for it without dispossessing another. The editor of the Standard must have been reduced to sore, straits when he resorted to this argument. With all his shufiling he has not yet escaped, and never· can escape, the fact· that, if govern ment were to confiscate land values, any man would be liable to be turned out of doors, perhaps with compensa,tion, perhaps without it, and thus deprived, maybe, of his dearest joy and subjected to irreparable loss, just because other men had set tled in his vicinity or decided to run a railroad within two minutes' walk of his door. This in itself is enough to damn Mr. George's project. That boasted craft, Land Nationaliza tion, is floundering among the rocks, and the rock of individ ual liberty and the inalienable homestead has just made an enormous hole in its unseaworthy bottom which will admit all the water necessary to sink it.

Henry George's correspondents continue to press him re garding the fate of the man whose home should so rise in IND IVID U AL LIBERTY 237 value through increase of population that he would be taxed out of it. At first, it will be remembered, Mr. George coolly sneered at the objectors to this species'of eviction as near rel ativesof those who objected to the abolition of slavery on the ground that it would tCdeprive'the widow Smith of her only (nigger.'" Liberty made some comments on this, which ,Mr. George never noticed. Since their appearance, however, his analogy between prope,rty in ((niggers" and a man's property in his house has lapsed,. as President Cleveland would say, int:o a .condition. of. tCinnocuous desuetude," and a new method of ~~ttling. this difficulty has been evolved. A, corresponden.t"\ lihaving .supposed the case.of a man whose neighborhood ShOUI~' c. ".'.',:",.I,/bec.omea b..,usinesscentre, and Whose. pl.a.c.e o.fre~ide!,ce.,_.. the.r.<e.....'.•..Ufore, as f~r as,the land was concerned, should rIse In value so ;i that he could not afford or might not desire to pay the ta i I.$.',\~.~.·.·~,:,k.;.~:~.~:~f.~.:i.~:b.s~r?:~~e~:~.t:.E,;:;~r;~I§~i< l.·. ensate him for b,eing obliged to.• sell his hou.se at a sacrifice.

" hat this method has some advantages over the ~tnigger" ar gument I am not prepared to deny, but I am tempted to a.sk Mr. George whether this is one of the ways by which he pro~ poses to ttsimplify government." Henry George, in the Standard, calls Dr. Cogswell of San: Francisco, who has endowed a polytechnic .college in that city, and for its maintenance has conveyed certain ,lands to trustees, a Ctphilanthropist by proxy," on the ground that the people who pay rent for these lands are really taxed by Dr. Cogswell for the support of .the college. But what are Henry George himself, by his theory, and his ideal State, by its practice, after realization, but ((philanthropists by proxy"? What else, in fact, is\ tlie,State as it now exists? (Oftener a cahnibal' than a philanthropist, to be sure, but in eithercas~by proxy.) Does not Mr. George propose that the State shall tax individuals to secure ((public improvements~' which they may not cOtlsider such,or which they m~y consider less desirable to the111 than private improvemeP-ts? · Does he not propose that individuals shall. ttlabor 'gratis" for the State, ((whether they like it. or not"? 'Does he not maintain that what the State Ctdoes with 2.38 INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY their labor is simply none of 1:heir business"? Mr. George's criticism of Dr. Cogswell is equally a criticism of every form of compulsory taxation, especially the taxation of land values.

He has aptly and accurately described himself. There must be a limitation to great fortunes, says Henry George, «but that limitation must be natural, not artificial. Such a limitation is offered by the land value tax." What in the name of sense is there about a tax that makes it natural as distinguished from artificial? If anything in the world is purely artificial, taxes are. And if they are collected by force, they are not only artificial, but arbitrary and, tyrannical. Henry George answers a correspondent who asks if under the system of taxing land values an enemy could not compel him to pay a higher tax on his land simply by making him ""an offer for the land in excess of the existing basis of taxation, ~lby saying that no offers will chang<:th~"~?:~!~,,,Qf,!~~~!i()l},l1n.. ",.les~ they are made in good faidf'arid for other than sentimental moti ves.lt'seerrrS';'"tben;'''fffaf'''tne'tax'''ass'essors''' are to be in..

quisitorsas'\\T~lr;.'a~~~'~"~i~h,"I??W'er~?,~l.l1Jject ""men to ex.. l ~mi~atiorlo! ,~~ei: 1~10~ive,~:~o~'::a~si~,i~q't,~'e~ect any given/ "jtra#i~ci~on,"in" ra,~~::,~,:,'~',:Whit:"ilQ,rIQ,H~~~3!~i~",:',~h?se will be fot Ctboodlers"''!'''''Wli'at,gQldeA,QPcE9r~urti~ies,tor',traud, favoritisqIt ;~~~~~~ffn*so1i>~f~~liie.tJt~~o~tf~r:.~~?!.g!:~:~1 have r t Io.~, The idiocy'~'t"'th~w'Ai~rg~m~;;t~';~pI~'y~ft~'~t~dai1y press ~ discussing the .labor question cannot well be exaggerated, b~ nevertheless it sometimes makes a' point on Henry George ,which that gentleman cannot meet. For instance, the New ; York W<?!:l.~, ..lCl,1;~h,-, J?,2~?t~?~t,lt that, ~ne~~~,eq. increment at taches not only ~~J~"~~"J?Y,t.);Q,:aiUlOst::ev,er~"px.ad1.lGt"of labor. ccNewsp'ap'ers;"""it'said, (Care made valuable properties by the .,j,ncrease of population." Mr. George seems to think this'''ri,: , diculous, and inquires confidently whether the World's suc~ cess is due to increase of population or to Pulitzer's busines~ management. As if one cause excluded the other! Does Mrl Ge()rge '0' ~~,l~ev~,.~~en, t~~~,~l.llit~e~'S busin~~s management could have secured"iC'fuiIIion'readei's'of't1ie'~World if there ha_ been no people in New York? Of course'not~'",,,~hen,, to' folf.

low his own logic, Mr. George ought to discriminate in th\s case, as in the case of land, between the owner's improvemen~ ) IN D IV IDU ALL IBE RTY 2.39 and the community's improvetnents,and tax the latter out of the owner's hands. ,H~nryGeorge was recently 'reminded in these columns that his own logic would compel him to lay a tax not only on land values, .' but on all values growing out of increase of popula tion, and, newspaper' properties were cited in illustration. A correspondent of the Standard has made the, same criticism, instancing, instead of a,newspaper, uCrusoe'sboat, which rose ~n. value when a sh~p appeared on the hot~zon}' , T() thi.s cor respondent Mr. George makes answer that, while Crusoe'~ boat might have acquired a value when other people came, ubecausevalue isa factor of trading, and, when there is no one to trade with, there can be no value," ,yet Hit by no means folrows that ,growth of, population increases the value of labor products; for a population of fifty' will give as ,much value to a desirable product. asapopulatiotl of a Il1illion." I am ready to admit' thiso£., any article which can ,be readily produced by any and all who choose to. produce it. "But,. as Mr. George says, it is not true of land; and it is asetnphati ...

cally not true of everyatticle in great demand which "can. beproduced,.in a:ppro~imately equal quality ,and with, approxi ... mately .equal.expense, by only one .or a few persons. There are many such articles, and one of them isa popular news.. tpaper. Such articles are of small value, where there are few lpeople and of immense value where there are many. Thisextti"' iivalue is unearned ,increm~J:lt,~ndought tobe~ 'tiied"ottt'''of ltheindi"V"i~tl~ts~~114~ ,~l1~()tllo~e 'l)tt~~~~~~liIltt:llity"n:,'anyun learned, increiiient'oUS7litt,q;~Jje;,~~..vGeorge,be honest!: t~•• ".~~i~<s"'s;'e':;'~T't'~f""~'~'''>'''Ydoctrinewil1lead us"•."J:t~." P" ",_""",h" Ii. r "~J.lr"~""H'N',"<'>T,,..,n" "'<"""""'W'-'~""'""Cart"and. horse are all one to Henry George. He puts .either 'first to suit, his ,fancy or the turn his questioner mar t~ke, ,and no matter which he, places in the'. lead, he ((gets, there •all the. same"-on paper. When he is·.asked how taxa tion ,0£ land. values will abolish poverty, he answers, that the rush of' wage-laborers to the land wilL reduce the supply of labor, and send wages up. Then, when somebody else ,asks him how wage-laborers will be able to rush to the land with ()utmoney ,to take. them •there and capital,to work· the land afterwards, he answers that wages will then be so high that the laborers wilL soon be able to save up ,mottey enough to start 240 INDIVIDUAL LIBER TY with. Sometimes, indeed, as if dimly perceiving the presence of some inconsistency lurking between these two propositions, he volunteers an additional suggestion that, after the lapse of a generation, he will be a phenomenally unfortunate young man who shall have no relatives or friends to help him start upon the land. But we are left as much in the dark as ever about the method by which these relatives or friends, during the generation which must elapse before the young men get to the land, are to save up anything to give these young men a start, in the absence of that increase of wages which can only come as a consequence of the young men having gone to the land. Mr. George, however, has still· another resource in re serve, and, when forced to it, he trots it out,-namely, that, there being all grades between the rich and the very poor, those having enough to start themselves upon the land would do so, and the abjectly poor, no longer having them for com petitors, would get higher wages. Of course one might ask why these diminutive capitalists, who even now can go to the land if they choose, since there is plenty to be had for but little more than the asking, refrain nevertheless from at once relieving an over-stocked .labor market; but it would do no good. You see, youcaa't stump. Henry George. He always comes up blandly smiling. He knows he has a ready tongue and a facile pen, and on these he relies to carry him safely through the mazes of unreasQn.

Henry George thinks the New York Sun's claim, that it is ~.t~£or liberty first, last and forever," pretty cool from a paper that supports a protective tariff. So it is. But the frigidity of this claim is even greater when it comes from a man who proposes on occasion to tax a man out of his home, and to ,ccsimplify" government by making it the owner of all rail roads, telegraphs, gas-works, and water-works, so enlarging its revenues that all sorts of undreamed-of public improvements will become possible, and unnumbered public officials·to ad minister them necessary. ~erhaps no feature .. of Henry George's sche.me' is so often paraded before the public as a bait as the claim. that with a tax levied on land values all other taxes will be abolished. But now it is stated in the Standard that, if any great fortunes remain after the adoption of the land tax, it will be CC a mere detail to terminate them by a probate tax." This is offered INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY for the .benefit of those who believe that .interest no less than r~ntca.usesconcentration of wealth. To those who fear the effects upon home industry in case of an abolition of the tariff Mr. George hints that he will be perfectly agreeable to the of fering. ,of.bounties to home' industries.. to be sure, he would pay the'bouhties out of the land, tax; but the use of the pro...

ceeds of the land tax for a new purpose, after existing govern mental expenses had, been met, would be equivalent: {ito a new :tax •• ,S~we.' already have· three taxes in sight where there was to. be >but one~-the land tax~ the probatetax~ and the bounty taJ(:.'.·Presently, as new necessities arise, a fourthwillloQm up~ and.a fifth, .and a sixth. Thus ,the grand work of tesimplifying government" goesQn. The Single Taxer starts with the proposition thatC:C:ea~hin c:1ividualhas ajust claiIP.to the use of every part of the earth,'~" a.nd,.thus statting, he arrives at this conclusion: cCWhen land lias no value,-that is, when only one man wants to use it,-- We would exact no tax, but,when it acquires a value, our krillciple that each has an equal right to the earthdetnands I Jthat. its rental value should be paid intol:he public treasury."J UIhese two propositi~ns are 'made i~ .so many words bYMJ,;J"'~ .A;~ .. fl. Stephenson, t=an whom the SIngle Taxhas.no.~~lerad-t .vocite;"·not"'eX'C'eflti··"ljo·"M~lItIY·G~(ft'ge'··h:iMselt~'·,·"'ltncr'vet"'triith l , . 1"'. b . . ...",.l.;""",""",, _",,,,,. ~ reqttires'''ttre''"~~Serfio !~'>~"tfratt"a"'more~'aosura"rt~~':!~q~~t~!_!Ji~ I thi'S"wtf'iS"'i1ot'"'IroS"stbl'd"'forttr~ltttm1trt"minct"fo"conceive. I t has ' tl1e"'foriii·'·or.··'re'asohi~g~'>t'trt·;'~Insteaa"·ot'"rea;onlrtg:''tltis~llar and absolute contradiction. It is exactly paralleled in its essen-....

~ial by such an arg\1me,nt as the following:uThis watch beIlongs to, you; therefore it shoul1d be put . into my pocket." 'How does this differ, so far as logic and equity are concerned, from'the Single-Tax argument: uTo the. use of this corner lot you have a just claim; therefore the rental value of this lot should be put into the. public treasury'''? . ";-.,' ~If I··have a just ·clai11l to the use of every piece of .land on~ the globe, then of cour~e I have a just claim to the use of any l'articular piece of land. If I have this latter claim, I, and I falone, have the right to sell this claim. Whoever sells my Iclaim without my•consent is ,a robber.. Since every Single ' .T.••.•axe.r f.av.orsSltch.saleof my c.laim, wheth<jc I consent or not" 'every Single Taxer' is an advocate of robbery. I 242. IN D I V I D UALL I BE R T Y ~A.~ain: since I have' the sole right to sell my claim, I have the sole right to decide at what price it shall be offered in the market. Whoever sells it, even with my consent, is a robber, unless he exacts as great a price as that fixed by me. Since the Single Taxer proposes to sell it without even asking what I am willing to take for it, the Single Taxer is an advocate of robbe~", ~~my'just claim to a particular piece of land is sold, th'"

~.proceeds of the sale must go i.nto my pocket. 1£, after puttin . them in my pocket, I then see fit to take them out again an turn them over to the public treasury in exchange for polic • or other services that I may desire, well and good. But thisl must be entirely optional with me. I may keep these proceeds,j if I choose; I may spend th~m,iflJ;hQQse;c,and"in"the, lattert .sa~~,."t.ma.y,:_choose"hQ\Y",l.~.!!'L,~~£n~;l,,,,them..",,,,"A11¥wonewho at1 tem£~~"~~,,,"~:t!k~~itllte,,"his""GhQiGe<,c{'OfI""mille-"·in··mtnis"'matter is ~ robber. Anyone who lays violent hands ont.h~"pxQceeds ofl this'"sale"anil"ae'posits"iliefii'i'fi'tti(p'1J:QJic',ilea~ury, ,without myt 'consenf'is"''a'''fot515'ef:''''Nearl'''ever Sin Ie Taxer ro oses to~ ~."'.'.n.·.i~~~~~:~.•.:.,;.·~... :.:=:.~.er."e.Y._,f.,,Q,r.•,i..ri~~!Iy.~,i~~I:$,i~Je .. tax.e;,i...s...:l. .,---...............y ..,....',""~,~.",",...,~""'.~.'.."""'_..''',,''','" .F Ji"''''"]Juteven If'i'w-ere"ter'aH'ow'thi't'It would not be robbery. to\ {deposit in the United States treasury without my consent the' proceeds of the sale of my just claim to a particular pie'ce of land (on theg!:Q!!!!£!1li~1",I,.g..e.k,,,an ..,:eq:Uii]1enr·"''iiiq·'''theuse o£ stree~~,~!.£,;1;t,."~t,,,,1Y9}!rdstil1.~e. r()~b~ry,~o deposit such pro"::.

ceeds··~iii,~fh'~"i!!~~~~!.y:,:~r::Qr~j:(:~I.itii~ii:,Qi,",'.EtaAce or Russia or ", ~f~J~:~h?il.~b~;}E~i:~~!t£rJ~I~#;~~i~e~~:;~f:~; . particular piece of land In Peru. It this' claim is sold, who ever lays·;:han'd§;:l)tt,;..rhe:~:pmceedS'''''aTJ.d~~it§:,:.!h~<~, in ,the Pe ruvian treas~ry: .~~. a,.,ro.bber,.,B.ut ,Jlearly.,ey~r,y:",§irigle Taxer;; says~~~t.',~~~~~· a.~.~~urse as t?is "~~,~h~,,.~,~"2:~~o!!.g,~,~d,,'.~·ii9~~~ AMrly"ey~~Y.S:uigte,:,:·,T~!~~·'.~s·"a:~·actY?£~}.e.., aI,robbery ... ",., ,. Bear''iii'mind that I cLiinl<noright' to any part of the earth. But a right to every part of it isass~:t'ferl"·for<m"e·'bY'tli(;rSingle ' Taxers. The objection that I am now urging is to their use of their own assertion that a certain thing is mine as afounda tion for stealing it from me. Their doctrine may be summed up in three words: Property justifies robbery. Proudhon's i7.,'!!'adoxis eclipsed.

INDIVIDUAL LIBERT:Yj '243' Mr. Bolton Hall·. has expressed.the opinion that. lam in, creasingly worried as to the Single Tax •...Well, .Mr. Hall, you ~reright. •I' am ·worried as to ~he Single TaX,-not .((increas ingly," .but worried to the extent that' I have· been ever since ~CProgress and. Poverty" made its appearance. Whenever an intelligent man announces· a purpose"to tyrannize by force over peaceable folk, it worries me. And it especially worries me' when a dishonest man .like •He.nry George' uses the pull, of hypocr;tical .p~ety, . and •an honestm~nllk~. G. It St~ph~n.~ uses the pull of high moral appeal, to induce others to join them in ··their criminal effort to forcibly take from men the products of their labor. Every(form of authority worries ~ 'every attempt at authority worries me. State. Socialismwor'ri~me,Prohibition worries me,Comstockism .worries me, thej ;,.cpstom ~ouses w?rry' me, the ban~ng monopoly .worries me,1 \lfndlordlsm' worries .me,·and the Single Tax worries me.. Doi t~:usuppose fora moment, Mr.H.all~that, if thesethingsdidJ ,mot. worry me, I should be publIshing Liberty? Why,my good .•·sit, I am ·bending·•.·allmy .energie~ to •• the thwarting of you and .all •• others who. propose, .from whatever sincere.and generous motives, to ertforce their will upon non-invasive peo:'", pIe.....•. You worry me; indeed you do•. ·1 .wish .most heartily ~hatyouwould let me and other pe~ceable peoJ:lle alone, aban don your menacing attitudetowa~d our. property, and quit worrr~ng us, so that we might gOlabout our busfness.. ~ """"""So',much' tor th~.charge.of worry, •• which Mr. l-Iall.used as' ~J1introduction toacomplaint against me for printing,and '¥gainstMr. Yarros for 'writing, an article containing the £01 ,towing passages: cCWhereverit is profitable to improve land, 'it is generally improved without the compulsion of.,the Single Tax"; 'UHow would the Single Tax help 'labor in. England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Italy, and France? .There isn@ J.~nd speculation/in those countries worth mentioning." With Mr. Hall's obj~ctions to these passagesI do not propose to deal elaborately; perhaps Mr. Yarros will do so later. But, in vindication of myself,. I may say that to point •out vacant lots does not bverthrow Mr.• Yarros's statement that generally thatland is improved whichit is profitable to improve, and that. to point to. instances of .land speculation in Europea.n cou~tries •• does not 'overthrow 'Mr. Yarros's other statement that land speculation in .Europe is so much less frequent than· 244 INDIVIDU AL LIBER TY in newer countries that it is not worth mentioning. The comf,,:,I'~ parative and qualified statements of Mr. Yarros are construed ..:j t... by Mr. Hall into positive and sweeping ones, and thencriti..If -:\Ij cized as such. Mr. Yarros's claims amount simply to this, :. \.iJ~. that land speculation is an overrated evil even in this country, / "" "I and that in older countries, where the land question is much ;,./. "r'" more serious than here, speculation in land is so small an ele-\\.- ~ :~, .ment in the problem that it may 'be'~ negtectea~'''''Mr~ Hall's ~f\ .t>J! ,····" .•'surprisemar··I""shtJuld·' pfint'sucli"'st~n:emehts is paralleled by !i~ ~:"."::!~'.. ' my surprise at his hasty and careless reading of them.