William F. Buckley

Bill Buckley (1925-2008) is among the prominent politically conservative thinkers who enthusiastically endorsed Henry George's ideas. Here are a couple of examples.

CALLER: Mr. Buckley, it's a pleasure to talk to you.

William F. Buckley, Jr.(WFB): Thank You.

CALLER: I've heard you describe yourself as a Georgist, a follower of Henry George, but I haven't heard much in having you promote land value taxation and his theories, and I'm wondering why that is the case.

WFB: It's mostly because I'm beaten down by my right-wing theorists and intellectual friends. They always find something wrong with the Single-Tax idea. What I'm talking about Mr. Lamb is Henry George who said there is infinite capacity to increase capital and to increase labor, but none to increase land, and since wealth is a function of how they play against each other, land should be thought of as common property. The effect of this would be that if you have a parking lot and the Empire State Building next to it, the tax on the parking lot should be the same as the tax on the Empire State Building, because you shouldn't encourage land speculation.

Anyway I've run into tons of situations where I think the Single-Tax theory would be applicable. We should remember also this about Henry George, he was sort of co-opted by the socialists in the 20s and the 30s, but he was not one at all. Alfred J. Nock's book on him makes that plain. Plus, also, he believes in only that tax. He believes in zero income tax.

You look bored (addressing Brian Lamb)!

BL: No, no. As a matter of fact I was going to ask you about this little book ("Lexicon, A Cornucopia of Wonderful Words for the Inquisitive Word Lover"). I'm fascinated by it. I'm going to see if you can pronounce the word, the-fear-of-having-peanut-butter-stuck-to-your-roof-of-your-mouth, This little book starts off and the fellow's name, is it Jesse Sheidlower?...

WFB: I think so.

BL: S-H-E-I-D-L-O-W-E-R? You've never read it (the Introduction to "The Lexicon").

WFB: No. I never have.

BL: (Quoting the book) "The first time I met William F. Buckley, we were both members of a televised panel discussing word. The moderator introduced me with a pop-quiz to test my credentials asked me to define the word..." Is it USUFRUCT?

WFB: Usufruct, yeah.

BL (Quoting the book) "I felt smug as I recite the right to enjoy another's property as long as you don't damage it. Then Mr. Buckley leaned into his microphone and quoted an entire paragraph on usufruct from the political economist, Henry George.

WFB: Oh for heaven's sake!

BL: And this little book has..

WFB: The land belongs to those in usufruct.

William F. Buckley, Jr.: Home, Dear Home (October 18, 2005) at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucwb/20051019/cm_ucwb/homedearhome

The real estate boom is a familiar phenomenon. Most people are predicting that it will, if not burst, at least wilt. But the basic components aren't going to change, not unless we have a catastrophe of sorts, something economists don't feel obliged to integrate into their speculations.

The components are:

• a relatively wealthy community;
• the hard desire to own one's own house, along with the ambition to make it more and more comfortable and pleasing;
• the dependence of building sites on immediate amenities (sewage, power); and
• strategic sources of nourishment (jobs).

The convenience of infinitely available land faded as urbanization brought on heavy dependence on elements that weren't always available to homes on the range. Schools and hospitals are not only useful for educating children and curing the infirm. They are necessary to attract affluent home buyers.

Jon Gertner, writing for The New York Times Magazine, gives a useful account of the home-building industry. Here are some basic indices.

• We have 34 million rented apartments at this point and 74 million owner-occupied homes.
• The pool is being fed
  • by immigrants seeking houses,
  • by children growing and seeking their own homes, and
  • by the elderly wanting a second house in which to vacation or retire.
• The home-building industry has constructed about 13.5 million single-family homes since the mid-1990s.

So why is the cost of housing so high?

We learn that the average new house nationwide now sells for nearly $300,000. The writer tells us, "I asked (a builder) what our children -- my kids are both under 8, I told him -- would be paying when they're ready to buy.

"'They're going to live with us until they're 40,' (the builder) said matter-of-factly. 'And when they have their second kid, then we'll finally kick them out and make them pay for the house that we paid for. And that house will cost them 45 to 50 percent of their income.'"

Such data are dismaying, but perspective helps. "In Britain," the builder explains, "you pay seven times your annual income for a home; in the U.S. you pay three and a half." The Brits get 330 square feet per person in their homes; Americans, 750 square feet. But choice parts of the United States face "build-out." Consider New Jersey. It currently averages 1,165 people per square mile -- denser than India (914) and Japan (835).

And we confront, finally and inevitably, the question: What is to be done about it?

Almost without exception, housing specialists concur, high home prices are owing to zoning. Twenty years ago, in many quarters of the country, one year would go by before the political authority would permit a developer to begin housing construction. In New Jersey, that interval now approaches eight years. Delays of that kind have the effect of shrinking the amount of land on which houses can be constructed. We get the inflated costs so familiar. "(Some authorities) used sample prices from 25 areas to show that the cost of housing in a metropolitan area appears to be in direct correlation to its degree of zoning ordinances," Gertner writes.

This is a politically remote source of trouble. People who have to wait for a zoning agency to change its conventions, regulations, traditions and idiosyncrasies will be very old before they acquire a new home.

Henry George, the eminent social philosopher of a century ago, turned the attention of planners and economists, however briefly, to the indefeasible factor of land scarcity. Capital and labor can increase; land cannot.

Accordingly, George was the apostle of the single tax. It aimed most directly at land speculators. His insights would focus now on the limitations on the use of land imposed by zoning. If John Jones wants an acre protecting his house, he is laying claim to something that cannot expand in size. Since land, in George's analysis, is forever limited, it must be thought of and treated as common property. And therefore the rental value of one acre should constitute a tax (the single tax) on the person who sequesters it for himself.

A strong case can be made for the amenities of zoning laws. But they have an effect on the availability of housing, and on its cost. One result is that housing costs are increasing faster than inflation.

But is the Henry George factor likely to be espoused in political platforms? It cannot happen soon because too many interests are vested in zoning laws. But sharp political eyes should be trained on the question, in search of a viable formulation designed to fight against homelessness for grandchildren who cannot be expected to pay the projected cost of housing.

Copyright © 2005 Yahoo! Inc.

 

William F. Buckley: Firing Line — For Central America: A Radical Prescription (1986) — a conversation with Manuel Ayau (excerpts from http://www.schalkenbach.org/firing_line/BuckleyAyau.html).

MR. BUCKLEY:   Suppose Ferdinand and Isabella liked some bastard son and gave him three quarters of Guatemala, is it your position that his great-great-great-great-whatever grandchild should continue to own three quarters of Guatemala?

MR. AYAU:   Well, if he has legal title to it, yes. He will lose it. Remember, everybody has got to bid for his own property every day if there is really a market economy. So if they have been able to keep it that long because they have done something about it—

MR. BUCKLEY:  Only under the principles of Henry George. There isn’t much upkeep in owning three quarters of Guatemala, is there? You just own it.

MR. AYAU:   No, that’s a consequence of the redistributionist tax system. If we had a land tax, I am sure people would not be able to hold it without—

MR. BUCKLEY:  So you are in favor of a land tax.

MR. AYAU:   Absolutely. 

MR. BUCKLEY:   Aha!

MR. AYAU:   I am in favor of a land tax. Not a property tax, a land tax.

MR. BUCKLEY:   Is the Henry George land tax idea one that is taught in your university and are there a lot of disciples of it?
 
MR. AYAU:   Well, we don’t teach it as a particular theory, but it’s mentioned. I used to make— In my examinations I would draw a profile of a city, one low and one high. I would ask the students, ‘Which one has the land tax and which one has the property tax?’ to make them think of the consequences of the land tax. Now, I don’t agree with what I think Henry George said that this would be the only tax.  I also believe in other taxes.

MR. BUCKLEY:   Well, he thought that no other taxes would be necessary if you took 100 percent of the rental value of land, but that, of course, depends upon how heavy is the public sector obligation.

MR. AYAU:   That’s right.

MR. BUCKLEY:   Okay, let me ask you this. All right now, in Taiwan it is generally accepted, isn’t it, that land reform worked, but that land reform was effectuated by reimbursing the title holders in government bonds, which were very fastidiously repaid, and then forbidding the land buyer to own more than I think it was seven hectares or whatever it is — i.e., he could sell it to anybody else he wanted to, but not to somebody who already owned seven hectares. You would not approve of that, and tell us why.

MR. AYAU:   No. Well, first of all, the biggest landholder in Guatemala is the government. So there is no reason to use taxpayers’ money to go around buying land to change the owner. If Joe owns the land it must be for some good reason that Peter hasn’t bought it from him or outbid him. So the governments own most of the land in Latin America. Or they are the biggest landowners. They don’t own most of the land, I’m not sure about that. But they are the biggest. So there is no reason for the government to use taxpayers’ money to go out and buy land to then give it to somebody else.

MR. BUCKLEY:   Well, how is somebody who is bidding for land going to accumulate the capital to buy it? Let’s take a situation in which there is an idle stretch of land right near you and you are a 22-year-old trying to look after a wife and a child and the selling price of the property is beyond your reach. Who is supposed to give you credit to buy it?

MR. AYAU:   You would probably have to work a few years to get enough money to become a farmer if you are not a farmer already, if you don’t own anything. My own experience—

MR. BUCKLEY:  Is it possible to save in Guatemala?

MR. AYAU:  Of course.

MR. BUCKLEY:  Even given what you talk about the level of income— It’s what, four or five hundred dollars a year?

MR. AYAU:  No, it’s more than that, but it’s very low, I don’t question that. But what I think of land reform, and this is an important point, is that those people that propose it should give the land to beneficiaries without any strings and this they will never do. They always claim to be paternalistic. They know that if they give the recipients of land clear titles, the pattern will revert to a market pattern, and this is what they are really against. They’re more against that than anything else. To them, land reform is an end in itself.

MR. BUCKLEY:  Well now, what is it that you have specific reference to? That once you acquire title to a land and elect to sell your parcel of land to a larger land owner, the dogmatists object to that transaction. Why?

MR. AYAU:  Because what they want is a different pattern of ownership. What they want is more equal distribution of land — not a better distribution, not a more productive distribution, but a more equal distribution. That’s what they’re after. They think that’s better.

William F. Buckley: Firing Line — Has New York Let Us Down?(1985) — a conversation with Roger Starr and Mark Green (excerpts from http://www.schalkenbach.org/firing_line/BuckleyStarr.html ).

I should like to begin by asking Mr. Starr to talk about housing for awhile. What does a couple need to pay in order to rent in midtown Manhattan a two-bedroom apartment?

MR. STARR:   Well, as of yesterday afternoon, I would guess that it’s around $2,500 minimum.

MR. BUCKLEY:  How can they afford it?

MR. STARR:  They can’t afford it unless some business is paying it on their behalf, or unless they happen recently to have broken the bank at Monte Carlo or come into some other source of money. It’s a terrible situation that we have here.

MR. BUCKLEY:  Well, now, don’t terrible situations of that kind have to come to a head? That is to say, by laws that govern all economic activity, either people stop coming to New York or  else more apartments become available.

MR. STARR:  Well, my great fear is one, that this will discourage precisely the people we need to come to New York to entrepreneurial roles or leadership roles in the headquarters activities which now constitute our main economic activity here. If that doesn’t happen, we may suddenly have a decline in demand due to the fact that people will move out, that people who are living here just will be unable to afford my more and will move somewhere else. And of course we an artificial restraint on the market due to rent control, which means that nobody is likely to build a rental apartment house anywhere in New York City because of the fear that government is going to place an arbitrary limit on the extent to which rents can be raised to cover costs and so on.

MR BUCKLEY:   I think in one of your other books I read that the average American allots approximately 18-20 percent of his income for housing. Is that correct?

MR STARR: Well, it’s probably a little more today. Probably up around 20-22 percent.

MR BUCKLEY: Well, roughly speaking, though, I’d figure you’d have to make about $130,000 to  maintain that ratio if you were paying $2500 a month.

MR STARR: And don’t forget the taxes come off the top and you get no tax benefits.

MR BUCKLEY:   And no deductibility.

MR STARR: Oh, well, deductibility is going to be a very serious problem—a very serious problem.

MR BUCKLEY:   Well, let’s explore this problem profoundly, which you do in your book. But you disappoint me by having one reference to Henry George, and rather tendential, actually — about how Henry George, well a priest who advocated Henry George was excommunicated for doing  so. Why don't you first of all tell us who Henry George was and what his great thesis was, because I belong to that small band that continue to think that it is enduringly useful. 

MR STARR:   Oh, I agree with you very much. In fact, I won an award from the Henry George Institute last year. Henry George was an American of a rather patrician family, as I remember.

He developed the theory that the ultimate form of wealth was land, and primarily the locational value of land rather than ability to produce crops or its mineral resources.

MR BUCKLEY:  Excuse me. I don’t think he said the ultimate of wealth, did he? As I remember, what he said was the ultimate form of extortionate wealth, because tools are also a form of wealth and labor was also a form of wealth, but you could always have more tools and always have more labor, but couldn’t have more land.

MR STARR:  That’s true. When I say ultimate, what I mean is nothing can take place economically without being based on land. And you could, depending on the kind of enterprise you’re in, you could dispense with sewing with a sewing machine or a shovel or whatnot, but land you absolutely must have. And that therefore, if one taxed adequately — if government taxed adequately — the locational value of land, it was his theory that it would need no other taxes, and that by taxing the locational value of land, you would encourage people to develop the land, to improve the land, to build housing on the land, because this would not increase their taxes, but it would increase their return, and therefore, development would be encouraged very strongly.

MR. BUCKLEY:  Okay, now if Georgist principles applied in New York, what would happen  to existing relations of economic value?

MR. STARR:   Well, it would seem to me that the central section of the city would be built up under much greater density even than it is today, and that the exterior sections of the city would also be built up, because building on cheap land would not be punished the way it is today. If you buy a piece of land for $15,000 and put up an $85,000 house, you now have to pay taxes on $100,000 in valuation, whereas under the George theory, if all improvements were exempt from tax, you would still pay tax on the $15,000, so you would be encouraged to improve land of very low value, or relatively low value. I think it would be a tremendous help.

MR. BUCKLEY: As I remember, a glaring example of this took place when the Seagram building decided as an act of public courtesy to leave a certain amount of blank space in front of their building so that people could stroll through a mini-park there and sit down, for which they had to pay a most terrible penalty, as I remember, because the assessor said that in effect they were really improving their own land.

MR STARR:  The assessor said that they were economic creatures and that they wouldn’t have left this land fallow, if you will, economically fallow, if it didn’t increase the value to them of this beautiful building.

MR. BUCKLEY:  Yes.

MR. STARR:  And therefore, its advertising value became part of its constructional value and it was assessed. But I think that they finally won in the court of appeals. I don’t remember what the final verdict——

MR. BUCKLEY:  Yes, it got lost in one of those judicial mists, I think. But in any event, if Henry George’s principles were introduced here, two things would happen, as I understood you. Number one, there would be a greater density of building in midtown Manhattan; number two, investors would be prepared to reclaim land because it would become economically viable to build on it knowing that they wouldn’t instantly be taxed out of existence, right?

MR STARR: Right.

MR BUCKLEY:   Okay.

MR STARR: Now, we developed some laws to sort of make up for our stupidity in not adopting the Georgean theory. We have laws with cabalistic names like J-51 and 421-A, which in effect exempt new construction or rehabilitation from taxes, and they've caused a great deal of conflict because one always argues over whether construction would have taken place without this form of assistance.

MR BUCKLEY:  Enterprise zones and stuff like that.

MR STARR:   Yes, and Henry George would have eliminated all of that and it would have been natural to exempt improvements from taxation and the whole system of penalizing someone for improving his property would have come to an end. ...

 

MR. GREEN:   ... Let me ask Mr. Buckley a question about — do we have time?—

MR. BUCKLEY:   We have two and a half minutes.

MR. GREEN:   You criticized so-called progressives — that’s your phrase — who are upset that there are giveaways to developers, arguing that the developers would have done it anyway, and your point, a well-taken one, is "Who knows?"   But do you think there are sometimes giveaways? A waste of scarce tax revenues to people who would otherwise develop. Let me put it to Mr. Buckley and then ask you to comment. There is a thing called bidding for business. You and I would agree that product competition is terrific — lower price, higher quality. What do you think? You are a free market-oriented person. What do you think about location competition? Corporations are mobile, they can go around the country; cities are static, and when corporations play those cities and demand what could be called pejoratively tribute to move into your city, I think with the result that cities have to pay more tribute with taxpayer subsidies to get businesses to come in. There is a net loss to the economy. There are no more jobs created, because they have to locate somewhere. Do you think this city has been occasionally guilty of giveaways to companies to locate here and that this doesn’t help the economy?

MR. BUCKLEY:   I think this city has been occasionally guilty of everything, Just to begin with. In the second place, the locational problem is, of course, easily solved by any Georgist, and I am one. It would simply go to the highest bidder. I, 40 years ago, came out in favor of auctioning radio and television channels rather than simply lending yourself into a situation in which favoritism has to play a part. If you and I both contend for the right to build in a particular corner, the market solution is whoever pays for it most ought to prevail. But by the same token, we have to recognize that there are political entities with which we have to deal. I know an otherwise utterly honorable person who bribed a labor union here. Otherwise he simply would nor have been able to get his building up in time to—

MR. GREEN:  But your answer is off the point. The radio and television spectrum is scarce. You can’t have too many. So I agree with you that we should put them up for auction——

MR. BUCKLEY:  So are locational advantages in New York City.   So is——

MR. GREEN:  No, the Saturn plant can locate in 20 states, and the issue is, what state gives them the most tax revenues to bribe them to come in. It’s not a productive competition. Don’t you agree?   It doesn’t produce any wealth. It just shakes down cities like ours for our tax dollars. Are you worried about that at all, Mr. Starr, because, again, you didn’t mention it?

MR. BUCKLEY:   Again, the enterprise zone idea, sure.

MR. STARR:  I would much rather have businesses compete on the basis of what location is not only cheapest originally, but nearest to the raw materials and nearest to the market—

MR. GREEN:  Exactly.

MR. STARR:   —and nearest to the transportation. But I would question your statement that developers have been given unnecessary benefits. Let me point out that when Donald Trump was given the benefits that he used in order to turn the defunct Commodore Hotel into the Grand Hyatt, no one else moved forward. No one else wanted it. No one else would touch it. The development of this, which with temporary tax concessions, which Henry George would have made automatic, made the resuscitation of that area possible.

MR. BUCKLEY:   Thank you very much, Mr. Roger Starr, author of The Rise and Fall of New York City; thank you, Mr. Mark Green; and thank you, gentlemen of Regis.