"[John] Locke was not in error. The right of property in things produced by labor--and this is the only true right of property-- springs directly from the right of the individual to himself, or as Locke expressed it, from his 'property in his own person.'" (A Perplexed Philosopher, p. 30).
"I believe that the right of property lies at the very foundation of the social order and that no community can be prosperous or any state stay secure when the right of property is denied, and the heaviest indictment against the present state of things is that it is a denial of the right of property. What is the right of property? From what does it spring? Is it not, as Adam Smith says, that the first and most sacred rights of property is the right of man to himself and to the produce of his own labor; and is not a system which takes from laborers the produce of their labor and puts it in the hands of men who do nothing whatever to earn it--is not that system a denial of the first and most sacred right of property?" (An Anthology of Henry George's Thought, p 88).
"Yet to whoever will grasp first principles it
must be evident:
"That there can be no real conflict between labor
and capital--since capital is in origin and essence but the product and tool of
labor;
"That there can be no real antagonism between the
rights of men and the rights of property--since the right of property is but the
expression of the fundamental right of man;
"That the road to the improvement of the
conditions of the masses cannot be the road of restricting and denying the right
of property, but can only be that of securing more fully the right of property;
and that all measures that impair the right of property must in the end injure
the masses--since while it may be possible that a few may get a living or be
aided in the getting a living by robbery, it is utterly impossible that the many
should.
"It is not as deniers, but as asserters of the
equal rights of man, that we who for want of a better term call ourselves
single-tax men so strenuously uphold the right of property" (A
Perplexed Philosopher, p. 209).
"The right of life and liberty--that is to say, the right of the man to
himself--is not really one right and the right of property another right.
They are two aspects of the same perception--the right of property being but
another side, a differently stated expression, of the right of man to
himself. The right of life and liberty, and the right of the individual to
himself, presupposes and involves the right of property, which is the exclusive
right of the individual to the things his exertion has produced.
"This is the reason why we who really believe in the
law of liberty, we who see in freedom the great solvent for all social evils,
are the stanchest and most unflinching supporters of the rights of property, and
would guard it as scrupulously in the case of the millionaire as in the case of
the day-laborer" (A
Perplexed Philosopher, pp. 210-211).
"The word economy, drawn from two Greek words,
house and law, which together signify the management or arrangement of the
material part of household or domestic affairs, means in its most common sense
the avoidance of waste. We economize money or time or strength or material when
we so arrange as to accomplish a result with the smallest expenditure. In a
wider sense its meaning is that of a system or arrangement of adaptation of
means to ends or of parts to a whole. Thus, we speak of the economy of the
heavens; of the economy of the solar system; the economy of the vegetable or
animal kingdoms; the economy of the human body; or, in short, of the economy of
anything which involves or suggests the adaptation of means to ends, the
coordination of parts in a whole.
"As there is an economy of individual affairs, an
economy of the household, an economy of the farm or workshop or railway, each
concerned with the adaptation in these spheres of means to ends, by which waste
is avoided and the largest results obtained with the least expenditure, so there
is an economy of communities, of the societies in which civilized men live -- an
economy which has special relation to the adaptation or system by which material
wants are satisfied, or to the production and distribution of wealth.
"The word political means, relating to the body of
citizens or state, the body politic; to things coming within the scope and
action of the common wealth or government; to public policy.
"Political economy, therefore, is a particular
kind of economy. In the literal meaning of the words it is that kind of economy
which has relation to the community or state; to the social whole rather than to
individuals" (The
Science of Political Economy, pp. 65-66).
"The use of the term 'political economy' began
at a time when the distinction between natural law and human law was not clearly
made, when what I have called the body economic was largely confounded with what
is properly the body politic, and when it was the common opinion in Europe, even
of thoughtful men, that the production and distribution of wealth were to be
regulated by the legislative action of the sovereign or state....
"But the confusion with politics, which the
Frenchmen of whom Adam Smith speaks endeavored to clear away by their adoption
of the term 'political economy,' still continues, and is in fact suggested by
the term itself, which seems at first apt to convey the impression of a
particular kind of politics rather than a particular kind of economy. The word
political has a meaning which relates it to civil government, to the exercise of
human sovereignty by enactment or administration, without reference to those
invariable sequences which we call natural laws. An area differentiated from
other areas with reference to this power of making municipal enactments and
compelling obedience to them, we style a political division; and the larger
political divisions, in which the highest sovereignty is acknowledged, we call
nations. It is therefore important to keep in mind that the laws with which
political economy primarily deals are not human enactments or municipal laws,
but natural laws....
"It is not with the body politic, but with the
body social or body industrial that I have called the body economic, that
political economy is directly concerned; not with the commonwealth of which a
man becomes a member by the attribution or acceptance of allegiance to prince,
potentate or republic; but with the commonwealth of which he becomes a member by
the fact that he lives in a state of society in which each does not attempt to
satisfy all of his own material wants by his own direct efforts, but obtains the
satisfaction of some of them at least through the cooperation of others. The
fact of participation in this cooperation does not make him a citizen of any
particular state. It makes him a civilized man, a member of the civilized world
-- a unit in that body economic to which our political distinctions of states
and nations have no more relation than distinctions of color have to
distinctions of form" (The
Science of Political Economy, pp. 67-68).
"Utility is necessary to value, for nothing can be valuable unless it
has the quality of gratifying some physical or mental desire of man, though it
be but a fancy or whim. But utility of itself does not give value. Air, which
has the highest utility, has no value, while diamonds, which have very little
utility, have great value.
"If we ask ourselves the reason of such variations in
the quality of value; if we inquire what is the attribute or condition
concurring with the presence, absence or degree of value attaching to
anything--we see that things having some form of utility or desirability are
valuable or not valuable, as they are hard or easy to get. And, if we ask
further, we may see that with most of the things that have value this difficulty
or ease of getting them, which determines value, depends on the amount of labor
which must be expended in producing them; i.e., bringing them into the place,
form and condition in which they are desired. Thus air, which is of the highest
utility, since it is at every instant necessary to our existence, can be had
without labor....Large and pure diamonds, on the contrary, since they are found
only in a few places and require much search and toil to get, can be had only
with great labor" (A
Perplexed Philosopher, p. 37).
"I exchange gold for silver, let us say. In this I give something
positively and receive something positively. I get rid of gold and acquire
silver. The other party to the exchange gets rid of silver and acquires gold.
But when I exchange gold for exertion or toil, do I get rid of gold and acquire
toil, and does he get rid of toil and acquire gold? Clearly not. No one wants
exertion or toil; all of us want to get rid of it. It is not exertion in the
positive sense which is the object of exchange, but exertion in the negative
sense; not exertion given or imposed, but exertion avoided or saved; or, to use
the algebraic form, the relation of the quality of value is not to
plus-exertion, but to minus-exertion. Value, in short, is equivalent to the
saving of exertion or toil, and the value of anything is the amount of toil
which the possession of that thing will save the possessor, or enable him, to
use Adam Smith's phrase, 'to impose upon other people,' through exchange....
"The
current theory is that it is when and because a thing becomes exchangeable that
it becomes valuable. My contention is that the truth is just the reverse of
this, and it is when and because a thing becomes valuable that it becomes
exchangeable. It is not the toil and trouble which a thing has cost
that gives it value. It may have cost much and yet be worth nothing. It may have
cost nothing and yet be worth much. It is the toil and trouble that others are
now willing, directly or indirectly, to relieve the owner of, in exchange for
the thing, by giving him the advantage of the results of exertion, while
dispensing him of the toil and trouble that are the necessary accompaniments of
exertion. Whether I have obtained a diamond, for instance, by years of hard toil
or by merely stooping to pick it up--a movement which can hardly be called an
exertion, since it is in itself but a gratification of curiosity which does not
involve irksomeness--has nothing whatever to do with its value. That depends on
the amount of toil and trouble that others will undergo for my benefit in
exchange for it; or what amounts to the same thing, which they will dispense me
of in the satisfaction of my desire, by giving me things in exchange, for which
others will undergo toil and trouble" (The
Science of Political Economy, pp. 245-246).
"It is never the amount of labor that has been exerted in bringing a thing into being that determines its value, but always the amount of labor that will be rendered in exchange for it. Nevertheless, we properly speak of the value of certain things as being determined by the cost of production. But the cost of production that we thus refer to is not the expenditure of labor that has taken place in producing the identical thing, but the expenditure of labor that would now be required to produce a similar thing--not what the thing itself has cost, but what such a thing would now cost" (The Science of Political Economy, p. 253).
"The term land necessarily includes, not merely the surface of the earth as distinguished from water and the air, but the whole material universe outside of man himself, for it is only by having access to land, from which is very body is drawn, that man can come in contact with or use nature. The term land embraces, in short, all natural materials, forces, and opportunities" (Progress and Poverty, p. 38).
"The term rent, in its economic sense--that is,
when used, as I am using it, to distinguish that part of the produce which
accrues to the owners of land or other natural capabilities by virtue of their
ownership--differs in meaning from the word rent as commonly used. In some
respects this economic meaning is narrower than the common meaning; in other
respects it is wider.
"It is narrower in this: In common speech, we apply the
word rent to payments for the use of buildings, machinery, fixtures, etc., as
well as to payments for the use of land or other natural capabilities; and in
speaking of the rent of a house or the rent of a farm, we do not separate the
price for the use of the improvements from the price for the use of the bare
land. But in the economic meaning of rent, payments for the use of any of the
products of human exertion are excluded, and of the lumped payments for the use
of houses, farms, etc., only that part is rent which constitutes the
consideration for the use of the land -- that part paid for the use of buildings
or other improvements being properly interest, as it is a consideration for the
use of capital.
"It is wider in this: In common speech we speak of rent
only when owner and user are distinct persons. But in the economic sense there
is also rent where the same person is both owner and user. Where owner and user
are thus the same person, whatever part of his income he might obtain by letting
the land to another is rent....Wherever land having a value is used, either by
owner or hirer, there is rent actual; wherever it is not used, but still has a
value, there is rent potential. It is this capacity of yielding rent which gives
value to land. Until its ownership will confer some advantage, land has no
value.
"Thus rent or land value does not arise from the
productiveness or utility of land. It in no wise represents any help or
advantage given to production, but simply the power of securing part of the
results of production. No matter what are its capabilities, land can yield no
rent and have no value until some one is willing to give labor or the results of
labor for the privilege of using it; and what any one will thus give depends not
upon the capacity of the land, but upon its capacity as compared with that of
land that can be had for nothing. I may have very rich land, but it will yield
no rent and have no value so long as there is other land as good to be had
without cost. But when this other land is appropriated, and the best land to be
had for nothing is inferior, either in fertility, situation, or other quality,
my land will begin to have a value and yield rent" (Progress
and Poverty, pp. 165-167).
"As used in common discourse 'wages' means a compensation paid to a
hired person....The use of the term is still further narrowed by the habit of
applying it solely to compensation paid for manual labor. We do not speak of the
wages of professional men, managers or clerks, but of their fees, commissions,
or salaries. Thus the common meaning of the word wages is the compensation paid
to a hired person for manual labor. But in political economy the word wages has
a much wider meaning, and includes all returns for exertion. For, as political
economists explain, the three agents or factors in production are land, labor,
and capital, and that part of the produce which goes to the second of these
factors is by them styled wages.
"Thus the term labor includes all human exertion
in the production of wealth, and wages, being that part which goes to labor,
includes all reward for such exertion. There is, therefore, in the
politico-economic sense of the term wages no distinction as to the kind of
labor, or as to whether its reward is received through an employer or not, but
wages means the return received for the exertion of labor, as distinguished from
the return received for the use of capital, and the return received by the
landowner for the use of land. The man who cultivates the soil for himself
receives his wages in its produce...the hunter's wages are the game he kills;
the fisherman's wages are the fish he takes. The gold washed out by the
self-employing gold digger is as much his wages as the money paid to the hired
coal miner by the purchaser of his labor, and, as Adam Smith shows, the high
profits of retail storekeepers are in large part wages, being the recompense of
their labor and not of their capital. In short, whatever is received as the
result or reward of exertion is 'wages.'" (Progress
and Poverty, pp. 32-33).
"As commonly used the word 'wealth' is applied
to anything having an exchange value. But when used as a term of political
economy it must be limited to a much more definite meaning, because many things
are commonly spoke of as wealth which in taking account of collective or general
wealth cannot be considered as wealth at all. Such things have an exchange
value, and are commonly spoken of as wealth, insomuch as they represent as
between individuals, or between sets of individuals, the power of obtaining
wealth; but they are truly not wealth, insomuch as their increase or decrease
does not affect the sum of wealth. Such are bonds, mortgages, promissory notes,
bank bills, or other stipulations for the transfer of wealth....Increase in the
amount of bonds, mortgages, notes, or bank bills cannot increase the wealth of
the community that includes as well those who promise to pay as those who are
entitled to receive. The enslavement of a part of their number could not
increase the wealth of a people, for what the enslavers gained the enslaved
would lose. Increase in land values does not represent increase in the common
wealth, for what landowners gain by higher prices, the tenants or purchasers who
must pay them will lose....
"All things which have an exchange value are, therefore,
not wealth....Only such things can be wealth the production of which increases
and the destruction of which decreases the aggregate of wealth....
"Thus wealth, as alone the term can be used in political
economy, consists of natural products that have been secured, moved, combined,
separated, or in other ways modified by human exertion, so as to fit them for
the gratification of human desires" (Progress
and Poverty, pp.39-42).
"Now, as capital is wealth devoted to a certain purpose, nothing can be capital which does not fall within this definition of wealth....But though all capital is wealth, all wealth is not capital. Capital is only part of wealth--that part, namely, which is devoted to the aid of production" (Progress and Poverty, p. 42).
"It is as to whether its services or uses are to be exchanged or not which makes a tool an article of capital or merely an article of wealth. Thus, the lathe of a manufacturer used in making things which are to be exchanged is capital, while the lathe kept by a gentleman for his own amusement is not" (Progress and Poverty, p. 48).
"Interest...includes all returns for the use of capital...not merely those that pass from the borrower to lender" (Progress and Poverty, p. 173).
"For instance...take [Frederic] Bastiat's oft-quoted illustration of the
plane. One carpenter, James, at the expense of ten days' labor, makes himself a
plane, which will last in use for 290 of the 300 working days of the year.
William, another carpenter, proposes to borrow the plane for a year, offering to
give back at the end of that time, when the plane will be worn out, a new plane
equally as good. James objects to lending the plane on these terms, urging that
if he merely gets back a plane he will have nothing to compensate him for the
loss of the advantage which the use of the plan during the year would give him.
William, admitting this, agrees not merely to return a plane, but, in addition,
to give James a new plank....This plank, which represents interest, is said to
be a natural and equitable remuneration, as by giving it in return for the use
of the plane....
"[However] the essential thing which James loaned to William was
not the privilege of applying his labor in a more effective way, but the use of
the concrete result of ten days' labor. If 'the power which exists in tools to
increase the productiveness of labor' were the cause of interest, then the rate
of interest would increase with the march of invention. This is not so....
"If
there is any reason why William at the end of the year should return to James
more than an equally good plane, it does not spring, as Bastiat has it, from the
increased power which the tool gives to labor, for that, as I have shown, is not
an element; but it springs from the element of time*--the difference of a year
between the lending and return of the plane. Now, if the view is confined to the
illustration, there is nothing to suggest how this element should operate, for a
plane at the end of the year has no greater value than a plane at the beginning.
But if we substitute for the plane a calf, it is clearly to be seen that to put
James in as good a position as if he had not lent, William at the end of the
year must return, not a calf, but a cow. Or, if we suppose that ten days' labor
had been devoted to planting corn, it is evident that James would not have been
fully recompensed if at the end of the year he had received simply so much
planted corn, for during the year the planted corn would have germinated and
grown and multiplied; and so if the plane had been devoted to exchange, it might
during the year have been turned over several times, each exchange yielding an
increase to James. Now, therefore, as James' labor might have been applied in
any of those ways...he will not make a plane for William to use for the year
unless he gets back more than a plane" (Progress
and Poverty, pp. 177-185).
"When they thus think of interest, they think only of that which is paid by the user of capital to the owner of capital. But, manifestly, this is not all interest, but only some interest. Whoever uses capital and obtains the increase it is capable of giving receives interest....And so, if I use my own capital in directly aiding production, as by machinery, or in indirectly aiding in production, in exchange, I receive special and distinguishable advantage from the reproductive character of capital, which is as real, though perhaps not as clear, as though I had lent my capital to another and he had paid me interest" (Progress and Poverty, p. 188).
*The relation between time and interest is explained more thoroughly, and more to the satisfaction of modern-day economists, by Max Hirsch.
"It is too narrow an understanding of production which confines it merely to the making of things. Production includes not merely the making of things, but the bringing of them to the consumer. The merchant or storekeeper is thus as truly a producer as is the manufacturer, or farmer, and his stock or capital is as much devoted to production as is theirs" (Progress and Poverty, p. 48).
"Land, labor, and capital are the factors of production. The term land includes all natural opportunities or forces; the term labor, all human exertion; and the term capital, all wealth used to produce more wealth. In returns to these factors is the whole produce distributed. That part which goes to land owners as payment for the use of natural opportunities is called rent; that part which constitutes the reward of human exertion is called wages; and that part which constitutes the return for the use of capital is called interest....The income of any individual may be made up from any one, two, or all three of these sources" (Progress and Poverty, p. 162).
"Three things unite to production--labor,
capital, and land.
"Three parties divide the produce--the laborer,
the capitalist, and the landowner.
"If, with an increase of production the laborer
gets no more and the capitalist gets no more, it is a necessary inference that
the landowner reaps the whole gain." (Progress
and Poverty, p. 222).
"Where land is free and labor is unassisted by
capital, the whole produce will go to labor as wages.
"Where land is free and labor is assisted by
capital, wages will consist of the whole produce, less that part necessary to
induce the storing up of labor as capital.
"Where land is subject to ownership and rent
rises, wages will be fixed by what labor could secure from the highest natural
opportunities open to it without the payment of rent.
"Where natural opportunities are all monopolized,
wages may be forced by the competition among laborers to the minimum at which
the laborers will consent to reproduce" (Progress
and Poverty, p. 213).
"I am using the word wages not in the sense of a quantity, but in the sense of proportion. When I say that wages fall as rent rises, I do not mean that the quantity of wealth obtained by laborers as wages is necessarily less, but that the proportion which it bears to the whole produce is necessarily less. The proportion may diminish while the quantity remains the same or even increases" (Progress and Poverty, p. 216).
"We propose to abolish all taxes save for one
single tax levied on the value of land, irrespective of the value of the
improvements in or on it.
"What we propose is not a tax on real estate, for real
estate includes improvements. Nor is it a tax on land, for we would not tax all
land, but only land having a value irrespective of its improvements, and would
tax that in proportion to that value.
"Our plan involves the imposition of no new tax,
since we already tax land values in taxing real estate. To carry it out we have
only to abolish all taxes save the tax on real estate, and to abolish all of
that which now falls on buildings or improvements, leaving only that part of it
which now falls on the value of the bare land, increasing that so as to take as
nearly as may be the whole of economic rent, or what is sometimes styled the
'unearned increment of land values'" (The
Single Tax: What It Is and Why We Urge It, p. 1).
"If we tax houses, there will be fewer and poorer houses; if we tax
machinery, there will be less machinery; if we tax trade, there will be less
trade; if we tax capital, there will be less capital; if we tax savings, there
will be less savings. All the taxes therefore that we would abolish are those
that repress industry and lessen wealth. But if we tax land values, there will
be no less land.
"On the contrary, the taxation of land values has
the effect of making land more easily available by industry, since it makes it
more difficult for owners of valuable land which they themselves do not care to
use to hold it idle for a large future price" (The
Single Tax: What It Is and Why We Urge It, p. 2).
"When we tax houses, crops, money, furniture, capital or wealth in any of its forms, we take from individuals what rightfully belongs to them. We violate the right of property, and in the name of the State commit robbery. But when we tax ground values, we take from individuals what does not belong to them, but belongs to the community, and which cannot be left to individuals without robbery of other individuals" (The Single Tax: What It Is and Why We Urge It, p. 6).
"That part of the tax on real estate which is assessed on the value of land irrespective of improvements is, in its nature, not a tax, but a rent--a taking for the common use of the community a part of the income that properly belongs to the community by reason of the equal right of all to the use of land" (Protection or Free Trade, p. 283).
"A tax on land values is of all taxes that which best fulfils every requirement of a perfect tax. As land cannot be hidden or carried off, a tax on land values can be assessed with more certainty and can be collected with greater ease and less expense than any other tax, while it does not in the slightest degree check production or lessen its incentive. It is, in fact, a tax only in form, being in nature a rent--a taking for the use of the community of a value that arises not from individual exertion but from the growth of the community. For it is not anything that the individual owner or user does that gives value to land. The value that he creates is a value that attaches to improvements. This, being the result of individual exertion, properly belongs to the individual." (Protection or Free Trade, p. 288).
"The tax upon land values is, therefore, the most just and equal of all taxes. It falls only 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. No citizen will have an advantage over any other citizen save as is given by his industry, skill, and intelligence; and each will obtain what he fairly earns. Then, but not till then, will labor get its full reward, and capital its natural return" (Progress and Poverty, p. 421).
"But as men begin to cultivate the ground and expend their labor in
permanent works, private possession of the land on which labor is thus expended
is needed to secure the right of property in the products of labor. For who
would sow if not assured of the exclusive possession needed to enable him to
reap? Who would attach costly works to the soil without such exclusive
possession of the soil as would enable him to secure the benefit?
"This right of private possession in things
created by God is however very different from the right of private ownership in
things produced by labor. The one is limited, the other unlimited….The
purpose of the one, the exclusive possession of land, is merely to secure the
other, the exclusive ownership of the products of labor; and it can never
rightfully be carried so far as to impair or deny this. While any one may hold
exclusive possession of land so far as it does not interfere with the equal
rights of others, he can rightfully hold it no further" (The Condition of Labor, p. 6).
"When men have equal rights to a thing, as
for instance, to the rooms and appurtenances of a club of which they are
members, each has a right to use all or any part of the thing that no other one
of them is using. It is only where there is use or some indication of use by one
of the others that even politeness dictates such a phrase as 'Allow me!'
or 'If you please!'
"But where men have joint rights to a thing, as
for instance, to a sum of money held to their joint credit, then the consent of
all the others is required for the use of the thing or of any part of it, by any
one of them.
"Now, the rights of men to the use of land are not
joint rights; they are equal rights.
"Were there only one man on earth, he would
have a right to the use of the whole earth or any part of the earth.
"When there is more than one man on earth, the
right to the use of land that any one of them would have, were he alone, is not
abrogated: it is only limited. The right of each to the use of land is
still a direct, original right, which he holds of himself, and not by the gift
or consent of the others; but it has become limited by the similar rights of the
others, and is therefore an equal right. His right to the use of the earth
still continues; but it has become, by reason of this limitation, not an
absolute right to use any part of the earth, but (1) an absolute right to use
any part of the earth as to which his use does not conflict with the equal
rights of others (i.e., which no one else wants to use at the same time),
and (2) a coequal right to the use of any part of the earth which he and
others may want to use at the same time.
"It is, thus, only where two or more men want to
use the same land at the same time that equal rights to the use of land
come in conflict, and the adjustment of society becomes necessary.
"If we keep this idea of equal rights in mind--the
idea, namely, that the rights are the first thing, and the equality merely their
limitation--we shall have no difficulty. It is through forgetting this
that Mr. [Herbert] Spencer has been led into confusion" (A
Perplexed Philosopher, pp. 27-28).
"In truth the right to the use of land is not a joint or common right, but an equal right; the joint or common right is to rent, in the economic sense of the term" (A Perplexed Philosopher, p. 242).
"Men must have rights before they can have equal rights. Each man has a right to use the world....The equality of this right is merely a limitation arising from the presence of others with like rights. Society, in other words, does not grant, and cannot equitably withhold from any individual, the right to the use of land. That right exists before society and independently of society, belonging at birth to each individual, and ceasing only with his death. Society itself has no original right to the use of land….The function of society with regard to the use of land only begins where individual rights clash, and is to secure equality between these clashing rights of individuals" (A Perplexed Philosopher, p. 30).
"We do not propose to assert equal rights to land by keeping land
common, letting any one use any part of it at any time. We do not propose the
task, impossible in the present day of society, of dividing land in equal
shares; still less the yet more impossible task of keeping it so divided.
"We propose--leaving land in the private possession of
individuals, with full liberty on their part to give, sell or bequeath
it--simply to levy on it for public uses a tax that shall equal the annual value
of the land itself, irrespective of the use made of it or the improvements on
it....We would accompany this tax on land values with the repeal of all taxes
now levied on the products and processes of industry--which taxes, since they
take from the earnings of labor, we hold to be infringements of the right of
property" (The Condition of Labor, p. 8).
"To abolish that taxation which, acting and reacting, now hampers every
wheel of exchange and presses upon every form of industry, would be like
removing an immense weight from a powerful spring. Imbued with fresh energy,
production would start into new life, and trade would receive a stimulus which
would be felt to the remotest arteries. The present method of taxation...
operates upon energy, and industry, and skill, and thrift, like a fine upon
those qualities. If I have worked harder and built myself a good house while you
have been contented to live in a hovel, the taxgatherer now comes annually to
make me pay a penalty for my energy and industry, by taxing me more than you. If
I have saved while you wasted, I am mulct, while you are exempt. If a man build
a ship we make him pay for his temerity, as though he had done an injury to the
state; if a railroad be opened, down comes the tax collector upon it, as though
it were a public nuisance; if a manufactory be erected we levy upon it an annual
sum which would go far toward making a handsome profit. We say we want capital,
but if any one accumulate it, or bring it among us, we charge him for it as
though we were giving him a privilege. We punish with a tax the man who covers
barren fields with ripening grain, we fine him who puts up machinery, and him
who drains a swamp....
"To abolish these taxes would be to lift the whole
enormous weight of taxation from productive industry. The needle of the
seamstress and the great manufactory; the cart horse and the locomotive; the
fishing boat and the steamship; the farmer's plow and the merchant's stock, will
be alike untaxed....Instead of saying to the producer, as it does now, 'The more
you add to the general wealth the more shall you be taxed!' the state would say
to the producer, 'Be as industrious, as thrifty, as enterprising as you choose,
you shall have your full reward! You shall not be fined for making two blades of
grass grow where one grew before; you shall not be taxed for adding to the
aggregate wealth'" (Progress
and Poverty, pp. 434-435).
"There are people into whose
heads it never enters to conceive of any better state of society than that which
now exists--who imagine that the idea that there could be a state of society in
which greed would be banished, prisons stand empty, individual interests be
subordinated to general interests, and no one seek to rob or to oppress his
neighbor, is but the dream of impracticable dreamers, for whom these practical,
levelheaded men, who pride themselves on recognizing facts as they are, have a
hearty contempt. But such men--though some of them write books, and some of them
occupy the chairs of universities, and some of them stand in pulpits--do not
think.
"If they were accustomed to dine in such eating
houses as are to be found in the lower quarters of London and Paris, where the
knives and forks are chained to the table, they would deem it the natural,
ineradicable disposition of man to carry off the knife and fork with which he
has eaten.
"Take a company of well-bred men and women dining
together. There is no struggling for food, no attempt on the part of any one to
get more than his neighbor; no attempt to gorge or to carry off. On the
contrary, each one is anxious to help his neighbor before he partakes himself;
to offer others the best rather than pick it out for himself; and should any one
show the slightest disposition to prefer the gratification of his own appetite
to that of the others, or in any way to act the pig or pilferer, the swift and
heavy penalty of social contempt and ostracism would show how such conduct is
reprobated by common opinion.
"All this is so common as to excite no remark, as
to seem the natural state of things. Yet it is no more natural that men should
not be greedy of food than that they should not be greedy of wealth. They are
greedy of food when they are not assured that there will be a fair and equitable
distribution which will give each enough. But when these conditions are assured,
they cease to be greedy of food. And so in society, as at present constituted,
men are greedy of wealth because the conditions of distribution are so unjust
that instead of each being sure of enough, many are certain to be condemned to
want. It is the 'devil catch the hindmost' of present social adjustments that
causes the race and scramble for wealth, in which all considerations of justice,
mercy, religion, and sentiment are trampled under foot; in which men forget
their own souls, and struggle to the very verge of the grave for what they
cannot take beyond. But an equitable distribution of wealth, that would exempt
all from the fear of want, would destroy the greed of wealth, just as in polite
society the greed of food has been destroyed....
"Consider this existing fact of a cultivated and
refined society, in which all the coarser passions are held in check, not by
force, not by law, but by common opinion and the mutual desire of pleasing. If
this is possible for a part of a community, it is possible for a whole
community. There are states of society in which every one has to go armed--in
which every one has to hold himself in readiness to defend person and property
with the strong hand. If we have progressed beyond that, we may progress further
still.
"But it may be said, to banish want and the fear
of want, would be to destroy the stimulus to exertion; men would become simply
idlers, and such a happy state of general comfort and content would be the death
of progress. This is the old slaveholders' argument, that men can be driven to
labor only with the lash. Nothing is more untrue.
"Want might be banished, but desire would remain.
Man is the unsatisfied animal. He has but begun to explore, and the universe
lies before him. Each step that he takes opens new vistas and kindles new
desires. He is the constructive animal; he builds, he improves, he invents, and
puts together, and the greater the thing he does, the greater the thing he wants
to do. He is more than an animal. Whatever be the intelligence that breathes
through nature, it is in that likeness that man is made. The steamship, driven
by her throbbing engines through the sea, is in kind, though not in degree, as
much a creation as the whale that swims beneath. The telescope and the
microscope, what are they but added eyes, which man has made for himself; the
soft webs and fair colors in which our women array themselves, do they not
answer to the plumage that nature gives the bird? Man must be doing something,
or fancy that he is doing something, for in him throbs the creative impulse; the
mere basker in the sunshine is not a natural, but an abnormal man.
"As soon as a child can command its muscles, it
will begin to make mud pies or dress a doll; its play is but the imitation of
the work of its elders; its very destructiveness arises from the desire to be
doing something, from the satisfaction of seeing itself accomplish something.
There is no such thing as the pursuit of pleasure for the sake of pleasure. Our
very amusements amuse only as they are, or simulate, the learning or doing of
something. The moment they cease to appeal either to our inquisitive or to our
constructive powers, they cease to amuse. It will spoil the interest of the
novel reader to be told just how the story will end; it is only the chance and
the skill involved in the game that enable the card player to 'kill time' by
shuffling bits of pasteboard....People who lead what are called lives of fashion
and pleasure must have some other object in view, or they would die of ennui;
they support it only because they imagine that they are gaining position, making
friends, or improving the chances of their children. Shut a man up, and deny him
employment, and he must either die or go mad.
"It is not labor in itself that is repugnant to
man; it is not the natural necessity for exertion which is a curse. It is only
labor which produces nothing--exertion of which he cannot see the results. To
toil day after day, and yet get but the necessaries of life, this is indeed
hard; it is like the infernal punishment of compelling a man to pump lest he be
drowned, or to trudge on a treadmill lest he be crushed. But, released from this
necessity, men would but work the harder and the better, for then they would
work as their inclinations led them; then would they seem to be really doing
something for themselves or for others....
"The fact is that the work which improves the
condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power, and
enriches literature, and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is
not the work of slaves, driven to their task either by the lash of a master or
by animal necessities. It is the work of men who perform it for its own sake,
and not that they may get more to eat or drink, or wear, or display. In a state
of society where want is abolished, work of this sort would be enormously
increased" (Progress
and Poverty, pp. 464-468).
"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.
"In the one case, as the other, the one will be
the absolute master of the ninety-nine--his power extending even to life and
death, for simply to refuse them permission to live upon the island would be to
force them into the sea.
"Upon a larger scale, and through more complex
relations, the same cause must operate in the same way and to the same end--the
ultimate result, the enslavement of laborers, becoming apparent just as the
pressure increases which compels them to live on and from land which is treated
as the exclusive property of others. Take a country in which the soil is divided
among a number of proprietors, instead of being in the hands of one, and in
which, as in modern production, the capitalist has been specialized from the
laborer, and manufacturers and exchange, in all their many branches, have been
separated from agriculture. Though less direct and obvious, the relations
between the owners of the soil and the laborers will, with the increase of
population and the improvement of the arts, tend to the same absolute master on
the one hand and the same abject helplessness on the other, as in the case of
the island we have supposed. Rent will advance, while wages will fall. Of the
aggregate produce, the landowner will get a constantly increasing, the laborer a
constantly decreasing share" (Progress
and Poverty, pp. 347-348).
"That a people can be enslaved just as
effectually by making property of their lands as by making property of their
bodies, is a truth that conquerors in all ages have recognized, and that, as
society developed, the strong and unscrupulous who desired to live off the labor
of others, have been prompt to use. The coarser form of slavery, in which each
particular slave is the property of a particular owner, is fitted only for a
rude state of society, and with social development entails more and more care,
trouble and expense upon the owner. But by making property of land instead of
the person, much care, supervision and expense are saved the proprietors; and
though no particular slave is owned by a particular master, yet the one class
still appropriates the labor of the other class as before.
"That each particular slave should be owned by a
particular master would in fact become, as social development went own, and
industrial organization grew complex, a manifest disadvantage to the masters.
They would be at the trouble of whipping, or otherwise compelling the slaves to
work; at the cost of watching them, and of keeping them when ill or
unproductive; at the trouble of finding work for them to do, or of hiring them
out, as it different seasons or at different times, the number of slaves which
different owners or different contractors could advantageously employ would
vary. As social development went on, these inconveniences might, were there no
other way of obviating them, have led slave owners to adopt such device for the
joint ownership and management of slaves, as the mutual convenience of
capitalists has led to in the management of capital. In a rude state of society,
the man who wants to have money ready for use must hoard it, or, if he travels,
carry it with him. The man who has capital must use it himself, or lend it. But
mutual convenience has, as society developed, suggested methods of saving this
trouble. The man who wishes to have his money accessible turns it over to a bank,
which does not agree to keep or hand him back that particular money, but money
to that amount. And so by turning over his capital to savings-banks or trust
companies, or by buying the stock or bonds of corporations, he gets rid of all
trouble of handling and employing it. Had chattel slavery continued, some
similar device for the ownership and management of slaves would in time have
been adopted. But by changing the form of slavery--by freeing men and
appropriating land--all the advantages of chattel slavery can be secured without
any of the disadvantages which in a complex society attend the owning of a
particular man by a particular master.
"Unable to employ themselves, the nominally free
laborers are forced by their competition with each other to pay as rent all
their earnings above a bare living, or to sell their labor for wages which give
but a bare living; and as landowners the ex-slaveholders are enabled as before,
to appropriate to themselves the labor or the produce of the labor of their
former chattels....They no longer have to drive their slaves to work; want and
the fear of want do that more effectually than the lash. They no longer have the
trouble of looking out for their employment of hiring out their labor, or the
expense of keeping them when they cannot work. That is thrown upon the slaves.
The tribute that they still wring from labor seems like voluntary payment. In
fact, they take it as their honest share of the rewards of production--since they
furnish the land! And they find so-called political economists, to say nothing
of so-called preachers of Christianity, to tell them it is so....
"But it may be said that the analogy between our
industrial system and chattel slavery is only supported by the consideration of
extremes. Between those who get but a bare living and those who can live
luxuriously on the earnings of others, are many gradations, and here lies the
great middle class. Between all classes, moreover, a constant movement of
individuals is going on. The millionaire's grandchildren may be tramps, while
even the poor man who has lost hope for himself may cherish it for his son.
Moreover, it is not true that all the difference between what labor fairly earns
and what labor really gets goes to the owners of land. And with us, in the
United States, a great many of the owners of land are small owners--men who own
the homesteads in which they live or the soil they till, and who combine the
characters of laborer and landowner.
"These objections will be best met by endeavoring
to imagine a well-developed society, like our own, in which chattel slavery
exists without distinction of race....
"[In such a society] the indolence, interest and
necessity of the masters would soon develop a class of intermediaries between
the completely enslaved and themselves. To supervise the labor of the slaves, and to keep
them in subjection, it would be necessary to take, from the ranks of the slaves,
overseers, policeman, etc., and to reward them by more of the produce of slave
labor than goes to the ordinary slave. So, too, would it be necessary to draw
out special skill and talent. And in the course of social development a class of
traders would necessarily arise, who, exchanging the products of slave labor,
would retain a considerable portion; and a class of contractors, who, hiring
slave labor from the masters, would also retain a portion of its produce. Thus,
between the slaves forced to work for a bare living and the masters who lived
without work, intermediaries of various grades would be developed, some of whom
would doubtless acquire large wealth....
"And, as has always happened where slavery had not
race character, some of these ex-slaves or their children would, in the constant
movement, be always working their way to the highest places, so that in such a
state of society the apologists of things as they are would triumphantly point
to these examples, saying, 'See how beautiful a thing is slavery! Any slave can
become a slaveholder himself if he is only faithful, industrious and
prudent! It is only their own ignorance and dissipation and laziness that
prevent all slaves from becoming masters!' And then they would indulge in
a moan for human nature. 'Alas!' they would say, 'the fault is not in
slavery; it is in human nature' -- meaning, of course, other human nature than
their own. And if any one hinted at the abolition of slavery, they would
charge him with assailing the sacred rights of property, and of endeavoring to
rob poor blind widow women of the slaves that were their sole dependence; call
him a crank and a communist; an enemy of man and a defier of God!....
"It must be remembered, however, that the
slavery that results from the appropriation of land does not come suddenly, but
insidiously and progressively. Where population is sparse and land of little
value, the institution of private property in land may exist without its effects
being much felt. As it becomes more and more difficult to get land, so will the
virtual enslavement of the laboring-classes go on. As the value of the bare land
rises, more and more of the earnings of labor will be demanded for the use of
land, until finally nothing is left to laborers but the wages of slavery--a bare
living. [Click
here for a recent example of this]
"But the degree as well as the manner in which
individuals are affected by this movement must vary very much. Where the
ownership of land has been much diffused, there will remain, for some time after
the mere laborer has been reduced to the wages of slavery, a greater body of
smaller landowners occupying an intermediate position, and who, according to the
land they hold, and the relation which it bears to their labor, may, to make a
comparison with chattel slavery, be compared, in their gradations, to the owners
of a few slaves; to those who own no slaves but are themselves free; or to
partial slaves, compelled to render service for one, two, three, four or five
days in the week, but for the rest of the time their own masters" (Social
Problems, pp. 150-156).
"We differ from the socialists in our diagnosis of the evil and we differ from them as to remedies. We have no fear of capital, regarding it as the natural handmaiden of labor; we look on interest in itself as natural and just; we would set no limit to accumulation, nor impose on the rich any burden that is not equally placed on the poor; we see no evil in competition, but deem unrestricted competition to be as necessary to the health of the industrial and social organism as the free circulation of the blood is to the health of the bodily organism--to be the agency whereby the fullest cooperation is to be secured" (The Condition of Labor, p. 61).
"Socialism takes no account of natural laws, neither seeking them nor striving to be governed by them....It is more destitute of any central and guiding principle than any philosophy I know of" (The Science of Political Economy, p. 198).
"[In] truth I think that in trying to understand the socialists, you have confused yourself, which I don't wonder. The truth is that they do not understand themselves. As for Karl Marx, he is the prince of muddleheads" (An Anthology of Henry George's Thought, p. 78).
"To prevent government from becoming corrupt and tyrannous, its organization and methods should be as simple as possible, its functions be restricted to those necessary to the common welfare, and in all its parts it should be kept as close to the people and as directly within their control as may be" (Social Problems, p. 171).
"The first and main purpose of government is admirably stated in that grand document which we Americans so honor and so ignore--the Declaration of Independence. It is to secure to men those equal and unalienable rights with which the Creator has endowed them" (Social Problems, p. 171).
"The best use that could be made of our great law libraries…would be to send them to the paper mills….At the same time our statute-books are full of enactments which could, with advantage, be swept away. It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve" (Social Problems, p. 173).
"It is not the business of government to direct the employment of labor and capital, and to foster certain industries at the expense of other industries." (Social Problems, p. 178).
"These essays [by Herbert Spencer] are strongly individualistic, condemning even bitterly any use of governmental powers or funds to regulate the conditions of labor or alleviate the evils of poverty. In this Mr. Spencer was continuing and accentuating a line begun in 'Social Statics,' and, in the view of those who think as I do, was in the main right; for governmental interferences and regulations and bonuses are in their nature restrictions on freedom, and cannot cure evils that primarily flow from denials of freedom" (A Perplexed Philosopher, p. 66).
"What we want today to bring us all together is, not union under one government that shall assume to govern, but that absolute freedom of intercourse that shall entwine all interests, that absolute freedom of intercourse that shall establish a daily ferry from this side of Atlantic to the other side of the Atlantic, that shall make everyone belonging to any of these nations, wherever he may be on the territory of another, feel as though he were at home. That is what we strive for--for the freedom of all, for self-government to all--and for as little government as possible. We don't believe that tyranny is a thing alone of kings and monarchs; we know well that majorities can be as tyrannous as aristocracies; we know that mobs can persecute as well as crowned heads. What we ask for is freedom--that in each locality, large or small, the people of that locality shall be free to manage the affairs that pertain only to that locality; that each individual shall be free to manage the affairs that relate to him; that governments shall not presume to say of whom he shall buy or to whom he shall sell, shall not attempt to dictate to him in any way, but shall confine itself to its proper function of preserving the public peace, of preventing the strong from oppressing the weak, of utilizing for the public good all the revenues that belong of right to the public, and of managing those affairs that are best managed by the whole. Our doctrine is the doctrine of freedom, our gospel is the gospel of liberty..." (An Anthology of Henry George's Thought, p. 41).
"Trade does not require force. Free trade consists simply in letting people buy and sell as they want to buy and sell. It is protection that requires force, for it consists in preventing people from doing what they want to do. Protective tariffs are as much applications of force as are blockading squadrons, and their object is the same--to prevent trade. The difference between the two is that blockading squadrons are a means whereby nations seek to prevent their enemies from trading; protective tariffs are a means whereby nations attempt to prevent their own people from trading. What protection teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war" (Protection or Free Trade, pp. 46-47).
"Free trade means free production. Now fully to free production it is necessary not only to remove all taxes on production, but also to remove all other restrictions on production" (Protection or Free Trade, p. 289).
"True free trade...leads not only to the largest production of wealth,
but to the fairest distribution. It is the easy and obvious way of bringing
about that change by which alone justice in distribution can be secured, and the
great inventions and discoveries which the human mind is now grasping can be
converted into agencies for the elevation of society from its very foundations.
"This was seen with the utmost clearness by that
knot of great Frenchmen [the Physiocrats] who, in the last century, first raised
the standard of free trade. What they proposed was not the mere substitution of
a revenue tariff for a protective tariff, but the total abolition of all taxes,
direct and indirect, save a single tax upon the value of land--the impot
unique. They realized that this unification of taxation meant not merely the
removal from commerce and industry the burdens placed upon them, but that it
also meant the complete restructuring of society--the restoration to all men of
their natural and equal rights to the use of the earth....True free trade would
emancipate labor" (Protection
or Free Trade, p. 290).
"He who follows the principle of free trade to
its logical conclusion can strike at the very root of protection; can answer
every question and meet every objection, and appeal to the surest of instincts
and the strongest of motives. He will see in free trade not a mere fiscal
reform, but a movement which has for its aim and end nothing less than the
abolition of poverty, and of the vice and crime and degradation that flow from
it, by the restoration to the disinherited of their natural rights and the
establishment of society upon the basis of justice. He will catch the
inspiration of a cause great enough to live for and to die for, and be moved by
an enthusiasm that he can evoke in others.
"It is true that to advocate free trade in its
fullest would excite the opposition of interests far stronger than those
concerned in maintaining protective tariffs. But on the other hand it would
bring to the standard of free trade, forces without which it cannot succeed. And
what those who would arouse thought have to fear is not so much opposition as
indifference. Without opposition that attention cannot be excited, that energy
evoked, that are necessary to overcome the inertia that is the strongest bulwark
of existing abuses" (Protection
or Free Trade, p. 317).
"For my part, I would put no limit on acquisition. No matter how many millions any man can get by methods which do not involve the robbery of others--they are his: let him have them. I would not even ask for charity, or have it dinned into his ears that it is his duty to help the poor. That is his own affair. Let him do as he pleases with his own, without restriction and without suggestion. If he gets without taking from others, and uses without hurting others, what he does with his wealth is his own business and his own responsibility." (Social Problems, p. 87).
"I have been an active, consistent and absolute free trader, and an opponent of all schemes that would limit the freedom of the individual. I have been a stancher denier of the assumption of the right of society to the possessions of each member, and a clearer and more resolute upholder of the rights of property than has Mr. [Herbert] Spencer. I have opposed every proposition to help the poor at the expense of the rich. I have always insisted that no man be taxed because of his wealth, and that no matter how many millions a man might rightfully get, society should leave to him every penny of them" (A Perplexed Philosopher, pp. 70-71).
"We honor Liberty in name and in form. We set
up her statues and sound her praises. But we have not fully trusted her. And
with our growth so grow her demands. She will have no half service!
"Liberty! it is a word to conjure with, not to vex
the ear in empty boastings. For Liberty means Justice, and Justice is the
natural law -- the law of health and symmetry and strength, of fraternity and
co-operation.
"They who look upon Liberty as having accomplished
her mission when she has abolished hereditary privileges and given men the
ballot, who think of her as having no further relations to the everyday affairs
of life, have not seen her real grandeur -- to them the poets who have sung of
her must seem rhapsodists, and her martyrs fools! As the sun is the lord of
life, as well as of light; as his beams not merely pierce the clouds, but
support all growth, supply all motion, and call forth from what would otherwise
be cold and inert mass all the infinite diversities of being and beauty, so is
liberty to mankind. It is not for an abstraction that men have toiled and died;
that in every age the witnesses of Liberty have suffered.
"We speak of Liberty as one thing, and of virtue,
wealth, knowledge, invention, national strength and national independence as
other things. But of all these, Liberty is the source, the mother, the necessary
condition. She is to virtue what light is to color; to wealth what sunshine is
to grain; to knowledge what eyes are to sight. She is the genius of invention,
the brawn of national strength, the spirit of national independence....
"Only in broken gleams and partial light has the
sun of Liberty yet beamed among men, but all progress hath she called forth....
"Liberty calls to us again. We must follow her further;
we must trust her fully. Either we must wholly accept her or she will not stay.
It is not enough that men should vote; it is not enough that they should be
theoretically equal before the law. They must have liberty to avail themselves
of the opportunities and means of life; they must stand on equal terms with
reference to the bounty of nature. Either this, or Liberty withdraws her light!
Either this, or darkness comes on, and the very forces that progress has evolved
turn to powers that work destruction. This is the universal law. This is the
lesson of the centuries. Unless its foundations be laid in justice the social
structure cannot stand" (Progress
and Poverty, pp. 546-8).
"Social reform is not to be secured by noise and shouting; by complaints and denunciation; by the formation of parties, or the making of revolutions; but by the awakening of thought and the progress of ideas. Until there be correct thought, there cannot be right action; and when there is correct thought, right action will follow. Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness" (Social Problems, p. 242).
"Many there are, too depressed, too embruted with hard toil and the struggle for animal existence, to think for themselves. Therefore the obligation devolves with all the more force on those who can. If thinking men are few, they are for that reason all the more powerful. Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power" (Social Problems, p. 243).
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