November 1999
In the U.S. there was Henry George; in Russia there was Leo Tolstoy; and in Australia there was Max Hirsch.
Max Hirsch was born in Cologne, Prussia, in 1853. At the age of nineteen, while still living in Europe, he embarked on a career in international commerce. After years of traveling the globe on business ventures, Hirsch finally settled in Victoria, Australia in 1890. It was here that Hirsch became a respected and outspoken leader of the Single Tax movement. He died in 1909.
Democracy versus Socialism was Hirsch's master work. Published in 1901, it was the first book to deal comprehensively with Karl Marx's "Das Kapital" and the literature which had, up to the end of the nineteenth century, been published by Socialists. Hirsch's analysis is arguably the most thorough refutation of the basic ideas of Marx ever written. While Ludwig von Mises is often praised as being the first economist to offer such a refutation, it is important to note that, with respect to the evils of socialism, von Mises reached no conclusion in any of his works that Hirsch had not already reached decades earlier.
While Hirsch's views on capital and interest were heavily influenced by Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, his views on property rights were heavily influenced by Henry George. In short, Hirsch believed that the moral basis of private property is derived solely from the right of the individual to the fruits of his or her labor. But since land is not a labor product, Hirsch, like George, held that all individuals have an equal right to land, and hence to the rental value thereof. He advocated George's Single Tax remedy as a means of upholding the true right of property, while at the same time alleviating poverty by freeing laborers and capitalists from the clutches of State-granted privileges and monopolies, particularly as they relate to the concentrated ownership of land.
Click here to see excerpts from Democracy versus Socialism.
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