Is
Democracy Enough
to Create Equal Liberty and Shared Prosperity?
This theme should be more precisely titled: Is a democratic republic
enough to insure our equal liberty and shared prosperity?
A chattel slave knew he was a slave; he knew he was bought to labor
and he knew the indentures of his servitude. He endured conditions every
day
which reminded him of his status. In a democracy such as this, the landless
laborer is given what is called the freeman's certificate, a vote, but
he is nevertheless a slave under a system of private ownership of the rent
of land. He has to pay a fellow mortal for the right to use the earth,
the only source from which he can draw his sustenance. — Francis
Neilson, Man at The Crossroads, p.219
"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." - Henry George, (1839 -1897)
H.G. Brown: Significant
Paragraphs from Henry George's Progress & Poverty, Chapter 5: The Basic
Cause of Poverty (in the unabridged: Book
V: The Problem Solved)
In all our long investigation we have been advancing to this simple truth:
That as land is necessary to the exertion of labor in the production of wealth,
to command the land which is necessary to labor, is to command all the fruits
of labor save enough to enable labor to exist. We have been advancing as through
an enemy's country, in which every step must be secured, every position fortified,
and every bypath explored; for this simple truth, in its application to social
and political problems, is hid from the great masses of men partly by its very
simplicity, and in greater part by widespread fallacies and erroneous habits
of thought which lead them to look in every direction but the right one for
an explanation of the evils which oppress and threaten the civilized world.
And back of these elaborate fallacies and misleading theories is an
active, energetic power, a power that in every country, be its political forms
what
they may, writes laws and molds thought — the power of a vast and dominant
pecuniary interest.
... For land is the habitation of man, the storehouse upon which be must
draw for all his needs, the material to which his labor must be applied for
the
supply of all his desires; for even the products of the sea cannot be taken,
the light of the sun enjoyed, or any of the forces of nature utilized, without
the use of land or its products. On the land we are born, from it we live,
to it we return again — children of the soil as truly as is the blade
of grass or the flower of the field. Take away from man all that belongs
to land, and he is but a disembodied spirit. Material progress cannot
rid us of our dependence upon land; it can but add to the power of producing
wealth from land; and hence, when land is monopolized, it might
go on to infinity without increasing wages or improving the condition of
those who have but their labor. It can but add to the value of land
and the power which its possession gives. Everywhere, in all times, among
all peoples, the possession of land is the base of aristocracy, the foundation
of great fortunes, the source of power. ... read
the whole chapter
H.G. Brown: Significant
Paragraphs from Henry George's Progress & Poverty:
14 Liberty, and Equality of Opportunity (in the unabridged P&P: Part
X: The Law of Human Progress — Chapter 5: The Central Truth)
The truth to which we were led in the politico-economic branch of our inquiry
is as clearly apparent in the rise and fall of nations and the growth and decay
of civilizations, and it accords with those deep-seated recognitions of relation
and sequence that we denominate moral perceptions. Thus are given to our conclusions
the greatest certitude and highest sanction.
This truth involves both a menace and a promise. It shows that the
evils arising from the unjust and unequal distribution of wealth, which are
becoming more
and more apparent as modern civilization goes on, are not incidents of progress,
but tendencies which must bring progress to a halt; that they will not cure
themselves, but, on the contrary, must, unless their cause is removed, grow
greater and greater, until they sweep us back into barbarism by the road every
previous civilization has trod. But it also shows that these evils are not
imposed by natural laws; that they spring solely from social maladjustments
which ignore natural laws, and that in removing their cause we shall be giving
an enormous impetus to progress.
The poverty which in the midst of abundance pinches and embrutes men,
and all the manifold evils which flow from it, spring from a denial of justice.
In permitting the monopolization of the opportunities which nature freely
offers to all, we have ignored the fundamental law of justice — for,
so far as we can see, when we view things upon a large scale, justice
seems to be
the supreme law of the universe. But by sweeping away this injustice and
asserting the rights of all men to natural opportunities, we shall conform
ourselves
to the law —
- we shall remove the great cause of unnatural inequality in the distribution
of wealth and power;
- we shall abolish poverty;
- tame the ruthless passions of greed;
- dry up the springs of vice and misery;
- light in dark places the lamp of knowledge;
- give new vigor to invention and a fresh impulse to discovery;
- substitute political strength for political weakness; and
- make tyranny and anarchy impossible.
The reform I have proposed accords with all that is politically, socially,
or morally desirable. It has the qualities of a true reform, for it will
make all other reforms easier. What is it but the carrying out in letter
and spirit
of the truth enunciated in the Declaration of Independence — the "self-evident" truth
that is the heart and soul of the Declaration —"That all men
are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!"
These rights are denied when the equal right to land — on which and
by which men alone can live — is denied. Equality of political
rights will not compensate for the denial of the equal right to the bounty
of nature.
Political liberty, when the equal right to land is denied, becomes, as population
increases and invention goes on, merely the liberty to compete for employment
at starvation wages. This is the truth that we have ignored. And so
- there come beggars in our streets and tramps on our roads; and
- poverty enslaves men who we boast are political sovereigns; and
- want breeds ignorance that our schools cannot enlighten; and
- citizens vote as their masters dictate; and
- the demagogue usurps the part of the statesman; and
- gold weighs in the scales of justice; and
- in high places sit those who do not pay to civic virtue even the
compliment of hypocrisy; and
- the pillars of the republic that we thought so strong already bend under
an increasing strain.
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
a 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 stood forth, and the martyrs 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. ...
In our time, as in times before, creep on the insidious forces that, producing
inequality, destroy Liberty. On the horizon the clouds begin to lower. 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.
Our primary social adjustment is a denial of justice. In allowing
one man to own the land on which and from which other men must live, we have
made them
his bondsmen in a degree which increases as material progress goes on. This
is the subtile alchemy that in ways they do not realize is extracting from
the masses in every civilized country the fruits of their weary toil; that
is instituting a harder and more hopeless slavery in place of that which has
been destroyed; that is bringing political despotism out of political freedom,
and must soon transmute democratic institutions into anarchy.
It is this that turns the blessings of material progress into a curse. It
is this that crowds human beings into noisome cellars and squalid tenement
houses; that fills prisons and brothels; that goads men with want and consumes
them with greed; that robs women of the grace and beauty of perfect womanhood;
that takes from little children the joy and innocence of life's morning.
Civilization so based cannot continue. The eternal laws of the universe
forbid it. Ruins of dead empires testify, and the witness that is in every
soul answers,
that it cannot be. It is something grander than Benevolence, something
more august than Charity — it is Justice herself that demands of us to right
this wrong. Justice that will not be denied; that cannot be put off — Justice
that with the scales carries the sword. Shall we ward the stroke with liturgies
and prayers? Shall we avert the decrees of immutable law by raising churches
when hungry infants moan and weary mothers weep? ...
The fiat has gone forth! With steam and electricity, and the new powers born
of progress, forces have entered the world that will either compel us to a
higher plane or overwhelm us, as nation after nation, as civilization after
civilization, have been overwhelmed before. It is the delusion which precedes
destruction that sees in the popular unrest with which the civilized world
is feverishly pulsing only the passing effect of ephemeral causes. Between
democratic ideas and the aristocratic adjustments of society there is an irreconcilable
conflict. Here in the United States, as there in Europe, it may be seen arising.
- We cannot go on permitting men to vote and forcing them to tramp.
- We cannot go on educating boys and girls in our public schools and then
refusing them the right to earn an honest living.
- We cannot go on prating of the inalienable rights of man and then
denying the inalienable right to the bounty of the Creator. ... read
the whole chapter
Henry George: The Land Question (1881)
We have here abolished all
hereditary privileges and legal
distinctions of class. Monarchy, aristocracy, prelacy, we have swept
them all away. We have carried mere political democracy to its
ultimate. Every child born in the United States may aspire to be
President. Every man, even though he be a tramp or a pauper, has a
vote, and one man's vote counts for as much as any other man's vote.
Before the law all citizens are absolutely equal. In the name of the
people all laws run. They are the source of all power, the fountain
of all honor. In their name and by their will all government is
carried on; the highest officials are but their servants.
Primogeniture and entail we have abolished wherever they existed. We
have and have had free trade in land. We started with something
infinitely better than any scheme of peasant proprietorship which it
is possible to carry into effect in Great Britain. We have had for
our public domain the best part of an immense continent. We have had
the preemption law and the homestead law. It has been our boast that
here every one who wished it could have a farm. We have had full
liberty of speech and of the press. We have not merely common
schools, but high schools and universities, open to all who may
choose to attend. Yet here the same social difficulties apparent on
the other side of the Atlantic are beginning to appear. It is already
clear that our democracy is a vain pretense, our make-believe of
equality a sham and a fraud. ...
Even if universal history did not
teach the lesson, it is in the
United States already becoming very evident that political equality
can continue to exist only upon a basis of social equality; that
where the disparity in the distribution of wealth increases,
political democracy only makes easier the concentration of power, and
must inevitably lead to tyranny and anarchy. And it is already
evident that there is nothing in political democracy, nothing in
popular education, nothing in any of our American institutions, to
prevent the most enormous disparity in the distribution of wealth.
Nowhere in the world are such great fortunes growing up as in the
United States. Considering that the average income of the working
masses of our people is only a few hundred dollars a year, a fortune
of a million dollars is a monstrous thing–a more monstrous and
dangerous thing under a democratic government than anywhere else. Yet
fortunes of ten and twelve million dollars are with us ceasing to be
noticeable. We already have citizens whose wealth can be estimated
only in hundreds of millions, and before the end of the century, if
present tendencies continue, we are likely to have fortunes estimated
in thousands of millions–such monstrous fortunes as the world
has never seen since the growth of similar fortunes ate out the heart
of Rome. And the necessary correlative of the growth of such fortunes
is the impoverishment and loss of independence on the part of the
masses. These great aggregations of wealth are like great trees,
which strike deep roots and spread wide branches, and which, by
sucking up the moisture from the soil and intercepting the sunshine,
stunt and kill the vegetation around them. When a capital of a
million dollars comes into competition with capitals of thousands of
dollars, the smaller capitalists must be driven out of the business
or destroyed. With great capital nothing can compete save great
capital. Hence, every aggregation of wealth increases the tendency to
the aggregation of wealth, and decreases the possibility of the
employee ever becoming more than an employee, compelling him to
compete with his fellows as to who will work cheapest for the great
capitalist – a competition that can have but one result, that of
forcing wages to the minimum at which the supply of labor can be kept
up. Where we are is not so important as in what direction we are
going, and in the United States all tendencies are clearly in this
direction. A while ago, and any journeyman shoemaker could set up in
business for himself with the savings of a few months. But now the
operative shoemaker could not in a lifetime save enough from his
wages to go into business for himself. And, now that great capital
has entered agriculture, it must be with the same results. The large
farmer, who can buy the latest machinery at the lowest cash prices
and use it to the best advantage, who can run a straight furrow for
miles, who can make special rates with railroad companies, take
advantage of the market, and sell in large lots for the least
commission, must drive out the small farmer of the early American
type just as the shoe factory has driven out the journeyman
shoemaker. And this is going on today. ... read the whole article
Henry George: Ode to
Liberty (1877 speech)
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! ...
In our time, as in times before, creep on the insidious forces
that, producing inequality, destroy Liberty. On the horizon the
clouds begin to lower. 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.
Our primary social adjustment is a denial of justice. In
allowing one man to own the land on which and from which other men
must live, we have made them his bondsmen in a degree which increases
as material progress goes on. This is the subtle alchemy that
in
ways they do not realize is extracting from the masses in every
civilized country the fruits of their weary toil; that is instituting
a harder and more hopeless slavery in place of that which has been
destroyed; that is bringing political despotism out of political
freedom, and
must soon transmute democratic institutions into
anarchy.
In
the very centers of our civilization today are want and suffering
enough to make sick at heart whoever does not close his eyes and steel
his nerves. Dare we turn to the Creator and ask Him to relieve it?
Supposing the prayer were heard, and at the behest with which the
universe sprang into being there should glow in the sun a greater
power; new virtue fill the air; fresh vigor the soil; that for every
blade of grass that now grows two should spring up, and the seed that
now increases fifty-fold should increase a hundredfold! Would poverty be abated or want relieved?
Manifestly no!temporary.
The new powers streaming through the
material universe could be utilized only through land. And land, being
private property, the classes that now monopolize the bounty of the
Creator would monopolize all the new bounty. Land owners would alone be
benefited. Rents would increase, but wages would still tend to the
starvation point!
This is not merely a deduction of political economy; it is a
fact of experience. We know it because we have seen it. Within our own
times, under our very eyes, that Power which is above all, and in all,
and through all; that Power of which the whole universe is but the
manifestation; that Power which maketh all things, and without which is
not anything made that is made, has increased the bounty which men may
enjoy, as truly as though the fertility of nature had been increased.
Whatever benefit would accrue would be but
- Into the mind of one came the thought that harnessed steam
for the service of mankind.
- To the inner ear of another was whispered the secret that
compels the lightning to bear a message around the globe.
- In every direction have the laws of matter been revealed;
in every department of industry have arisen arms of iron and fingers of
steel, whose effect upon the production of wealth has been precisely
the same as an increase in the fertility of nature.
What
has been the result? Simply that land owners get all the gain. The
wonderful discoveries and inventions of our century have neither
increased wages nor lightened toil. The effect has simply been to make
the few richer; the many more helpless! Can it be that the gifts of the
Creator may be thus misappropriated with impunity? Is it a light
thing that labor should be robbed of its earnings while greed rolls in
wealth — that the many should want while the few are surfeited? Turn to
history, and on every page may be read the lesson that such wrong never
goes unpunished; that the Nemesis that follows injustice never falters
nor sleeps! Look around today. Can this state of things continue? May
we even say, “After us the deluge!” Nay; the pillars of the state are
trembling even now, and the very foundations of society begin to quiver
with pent-up forces that glow underneath. The struggle that must either
revivify, or convulse in ruin, is near at hand, if it be not already
begun. The fiat has gone forth! With steam and electricity, and the new
powers born of progress, forces have entered the world that will either
compel us to a higher plane or overwhelm us, as nation after nation, as
civilization after civilization, have been overwhelmed before. It is
the delusion which precedes destruction that sees in the popular unrest
with which the civilized world is feverishly pulsing only the passing
effect of ephemeral causes. Between
democratic ideas and the aristocratic adjustments of society there is
an irreconcilable conflict. Here in the United States, as there
in Europe, it may be seen arising. We cannot go on permitting men to
vote and forcing them to tramp. We cannot go on educating boys and
girls in our public schools and then refusing them the right to earn an
honest living. We cannot go on
prating of the inalienable rights of man and then denying the
inalienable right to the bounty of the Creator. Even now, in old
bottles the new wine begins to ferment, and elemental forces gather for
the strife! ... read
the whole speech
Henry George: Moses,
Apostle of Freedom (1878 speech)
We boast of equality before the
law; yet notoriously justice is
deaf to the call of those who have no gold and blind to the sin of
those who have.
We pride ourselves upon our
common schools; yet after our boys
and girls are educated we vainly ask: "What shall we do with them?"
And about our colleges children are growing up in vice and crime,
because from their homes poverty has driven all refining influences.
We pin our faith to universal suffrage; yet with all power in the
hands of the people, the control of public affairs is passing into
the hands of a class of professional politicians, and our governments
are, in many cases, becoming but a means for robbery of the people.
We have prohibited hereditary
distinctions, we have forbidden
titles of nobility; yet there is growing up an aristocracy of wealth
as powerful and merciless as any that ever held sway.... read the whole speech
Henry George: The Wages
of Labor
The evil condition of labor is
manifest in all countries! The miserly and wretchedness are alike
felt in
countries of different religions and of none; in monarchies and
republics; where industry is simple and where it is elaborate; and amid
all varieties of industrial customs and relations. And, there is one
world-wide common cause!
This common cause is clear when we
consider that, since labor
must find its workshop and reservoir in land, the labor question is
but another name for the land question! And see how fully adequate is
this cause! ...
A strong, absolute ruler might
hope by such regulations to
alleviate the conditions of chattel slaves. But the tendency of our
times is toward democracy, and democratic States are necessarily weaker
in paternalism, while, in the industrial slavery growing out of private
ownership of land that prevails in Christendom today, it is not the
master who forces the slave to labor, but the slave who urges the
master to let him labor.
Thus, the greatest difficulty in
enforcing such regulations
comes from those whom they are intended to benefit. It is not, far
instance, the masters who make it difficult to enforce restrictions on
child labor in factories, but the mothers, who, Prompted by poverty,
misrepresent the ages of their children even to the masters and teach
the children to misrepresent.... read
the whole article
Henry George: The
Land for the People (1889 speech)
Henry George: Political Dangers (Chapter 2 of Social Problems, 1883)
[07] Thus the mere growth of society involves danger of the gradual conversion
of government into something independent of and beyond the people, and the
gradual seizure of its powers by a ruling class — though not necessarily
a class marked off by personal titles and a hereditary status, for, as history
shows, personal titles and hereditary status do not accompany the concentration
of power, but follow it. The same methods which, in a little town where each
knows his neighbor and matters of common interest are under the common eye,
enable the citizens freely to govern themselves, may, in a great city, as we
have in many cases seen, enable an organized ring of plunderers to gain and
hold the government. So, too, as we see in Congress, and even in our State
legislatures, the growth of the country and the greater number of interests
make the proportion of the votes of a representative, of which his constituents
know or care to know, less and less. And so, too, the executive and judicial
departments tend constantly to pass beyond the scrutiny of the people.
can seize power. The very poor have
not spirit and intelligence enough to resist; the very rich have too much at
stake.
[11] The rise in the United States of monstrous fortunes, the aggregation
of enormous wealth in the hands of corporations, necessarily implies the loss
by the people of governmental control. Democratic forms may be maintained,
but there can be as much tyranny and misgovernment under democratic forms as
any other — in fact, they lend themselves most readily to tyranny and
misgovernment. Forms count for little. The Romans expelled their kings, and
continued to abhor
the very name of king. But under the name of Cæsars and Imperators, that
at first meant no more than our "Boss," they crouched before tyrants
more absolute than kings. We have already, under the popular name of "bosses," developed
political Cæsars in municipalities and states. If this development continues,
in time there will come a national boss. We are young but we are growing. The
day may arrive when the "Boss of America" will be to the modern world
what Cæsar was to the Roman world. This, at least, is certain: Democratic
government in more than name can exist only where wealth is distributed with
something like equality — where the great mass of citizens are personally
free and independent, neither fettered by their poverty nor made subject by
their wealth. There is, after all, some sense in a property qualification.
The man who is dependent on a master for his living is not a free man. To give
the suffrage to slaves is only to give votes to their owners. That universal
suffrage may add to, instead of decreasing, the political power of wealth we
see when mill-owners and mine operators vote their hands. The freedom to earn,
without fear or favor, a comfortable living, ought to go with the freedom to
vote. Thus alone can a sound basis for republican institutions be secured.
How can a man be said to have a country where he has no right to a square inch
of soil; where he has nothing but his hands, and. urged by starvation, must
bid against his fellows for the privilege of using them? When it comes to voting
tramps, some principle has been carried to a ridiculous and dangerous extreme.
I have known elections to be decided by the carting of paupers from the almshouse
to the polls. But such decisions can scarcely be in the interest of good government.
[12] Beneath all political problems lies the social problem of the distribution
of wealth. This our people do not generally recognize, and they listen to quacks
who propose to cure the symptoms without touching the disease. "Let us
elect good men to office," say the quacks. Yes; let us catch little birds
by sprinkling salt on their tails!
[13] It behooves us to look facts in the face. The experiment of popular government
in the United States is clearly a failure. Not that it is a failure everywhere
and in everything. An experiment of this kind does not have to be fully worked
out to be proved a failure. But speaking generally of the whole country, from
the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Lakes to the Gulf, our government
by the people has in large degree become, is in larger degree becoming, government
by the strong and unscrupulous.
[14] The people, of course, continue to vote; but the people are losing their
power. Money and organization tell more and more in elections. In some sections
bribery has become chronic, and numbers of voters expect regularly to sell
their votes. In some sections large employers regularly bulldoze their hands
into voting as they wish. In municipal, State and Federal politics the power
of the "machine" is increasing. In many places it has become so strong
that the ordinary citizen has no more influence in the government under which
he lives than he would have in China. He is, in reality, not one of the governing
classes, but one of the governed. He occasionally, in disgust, votes for "the
other man," or "the other party;" but, generally, to find that
he has effected only a change of masters, or secured the same masters under
different names. And he is beginning to accept the situation, and to leave
politics to politicians, as something with which an honest, self-respecting
man cannot afford to meddle.
[15] We are steadily differentiating a governing class, or rather a class
of Pretorians, who make a business of gaining political power and then selling
it. The type of the rising party leader is not the orator or statesman of an
earlier day, but the shrewd manager, who knows how to handle the workers, how
to combine pecuniary interests, how to obtain money and to spend it, how to
gather to himself followers and to secure their allegiance. One party machine
is becoming complementary to the other party machine, the politicians, like
the railroad managers, having discovered that combination pays better than
competition. So rings are made impregnable and great pecuniary interests secure
their ends no matter how elections go. There are sovereign States so completely
in the hands of rings and corporations that it seems as if nothing short of
a revolutionary uprising of the people could dispossess them. Indeed, whether
the General Government has not already passed beyond popular control may be
doubted. Certain it is that possession of the General Government has for some
time past secured possession. And for one term, at least, the Presidential
chair has been occupied by a man not elected to it. This, of course, was largely
due to the crookedness of the man who was elected, and to the lack of principle
in his supporters. Nevertheless, it occurred. ...
read the entire essay
Henry George: Concentrations
of Wealth Harm America
(excerpt from Social Problems)
(1883)
A civilization which tends to
concentrate wealth
and power in
the hands of a fortunate few, and to make of others mere human
machines, must inevitably evolve anarchy and bring destruction. But a
civilization is possible in which the poorest could have all the
comforts and conveniences now enjoyed by the rich; in which prisons
and almshouses would be needless, and charitable societies unthought
of. Such a civilization waits only for the social intelligence that
will adapt means to ends. Powers that might give plenty to all are
already in our hands. Though there is poverty and want, there is,
yet, seeming embarrassment from the very excess of wealth-producing
forces. "Give us but a market," say manufacturers, "and we will
supply goods without end!" "Give us but work!" cry idle men. ...
The progress of civilization requires that more and more
intelligence be devoted to social affairs, and this not the
intelligence of the few, but that of the many. We cannot safely leave
politics to politicians, or political economy to college professors.
The people themselves must think, because the people alone can act. ...
There is a suggestive fact that
must impress any one who
thinks over the history of past eras and preceding civilizations. The
great, wealthy and powerful nations have always lost their freedom;
it is only in small, poor and isolated communities that Liberty has
been maintained. So true is this that the poets have always sung that
Liberty loves the rocks and tile mountains; that she shrinks from
wealth and power and splendor, from the crowded city and the busy
mart. ...
The mere growth of society
involves danger of the gradual
conversion of government into something independent of and beyond the
people, and the gradual seizure of its powers by a ruling
class -- though not necessarily a class marked off by personal titles
and a hereditary status, for, as history shows, personal titles and
hereditary status do not accompany the concentration of power, but
follow it. ...
But to the changes produced by growth are, with us, added the
changes brought about by improved industrial methods. The tendency of
steam and of machinery is to the division of labor, to the
concentration of wealth and power. ...
It is not merely positively, but negatively, that great
aggregations of wealth, whether individual or corporate, tend to
corrupt government and take it out of the control of the masses of
the people. "Nothing is more timorous than a million dollars -- except
two million dollars." Great wealth always supports the party in
power, no matter how corrupt it may be. It never exerts itself for
reform, for it instinctively fears change. It never struggles against
misgovemment. When threatened by the holders of political power it
does not agitate, nor appeal to the people; it buys them off. It is
in this way, no less than by its direct interference, that aggregated
wealth corrupts government, and helps to make politics a trade. Our
organized lobbies, both legislative and Congressional, rely as much
upon the fears as upon the hopes of moneyed interests. When
"business" is dull, their resource is to get up a bill which some
moneyed interest will pay them to beat. So, too, these large moneyed
interests will subscribe to political funds, on the principle of
keeping on the right side of those in power, just as the railroad
companies deadhead [transport for free] President
[Chester A.] Arthur when he goes to Florida to fish.
The more corrupt a government the easier wealth can use it.
Where legislation is to be bought, the rich make the laws; where
justice is to be purchased, the rich have the ear of the courts. And
if, for this reason, great wealth does not absolutely prefer corrupt
government to pure government, it becomes none the less a corrupting
influence. A community composed of very rich and very poor falls an
easy prey to whoever can seize power. The very poor have not spirit and
intelligence enough to resist; the very rich have too much at stake.
Developments in
America
The rise in the United States
of monstrous fortunes, the
aggregation of enormous wealth in the hands of corporations,
necessarily
implies, the loss by the people of governmental control. Democratic
forms may be maintained, but there can be as much tyranny and
misgovemment under democratic forms as any other -- in fact, they lend
themselves most readily to tyranny and misgovernment. Forms count for
little. The Romans expelled their kings, and continued to abhor the
very name of king. But under the name of Caesars and Imperators, that
at first meant no more than our "Boss," they crouched before tyrants
more absolute than kings. We have already, under the popular name of
"bosses," developed political Caesars in municipalities and states.
If this development continues, in time there will come a national
boss. We are young; but we are growing. The day may arrive when the
"Boss of America" will be to the modem world what Caesar was to the
Roman world. This, at least, is certain: Democratic government in
more than name can exist only where wealth is distributed with
something like equality -- where the great mass of citizens are
personally free and independent, neither fettered by their poverty
nor made subject by their wealth. There is, after all, some
sense in
a property qualification. The man who is dependent on a master for
his living is not a free man. To give the suffrage to slaves is only
to give votes to their owners. That universal suffrage may add to,
instead of decreasing, the political power of wealth we see when
mill-owners and mine operators vote their hands. The freedom to earn,
without fear or favor, a comfortable living, ought to go with the
freedom to vote. Thus alone can a sound basis for republican
institutions be secured. How can a man be said to have a country
where he has no right to a square inch of soil; where he has nothing
but his hands, and, urged by starvation, must bid against his fellows
for the privilege of using them? When it comes to voting tramps, some
principle has been carried to a ridiculous and dangerous extreme. I
have known elections to be decided by the carting of paupers from the
almshouse to the polls. But such decisions can scarcely be in the
interest of good government.
Beneath
all political problems lies the social problem of the
distribution of wealth. This our people do not generally recognize,
and they listen to quacks who propose to cure the symptoms without
touching the disease. "Let us elect good men to office," say the
quacks. Yes; let us catch little birds by sprinkling salt on their
tails!
People Losing Power
The people, of course, continue
to vote; but the people are
losing their power. Money and organization tell more and more in
elections. In some sections bribery has become chronic, and numbers
of voters expect regularly to sell their votes. In some sections
large employers regularly bulldoze their hands into voting as they
wish. In municipal, State and Federal politics the power of the
"machine" is increasing. In many places it has become so strong that
the ordinary citizen has no more influence in the government under
which he lives than he would have in China. He is, in reality, not
one of the governing classes, but one of the governed. He
occasionally, in disgust, votes for "the other man," or "the other
party;" but, generally, to find that he has effected only a change of
masters, or secured the same masters under different names. And he is
beginning to accept the situation, and to leave politics to
politicians, as something with which an honest, self-respecting man
cannot afford meddle. ...
As for the great railroad
managers, they may well say, "The
people be d-d!" When they want the
power of the people they buy the
people's masters. The map of the United States is colored to
show
States and Territories. A map of real
political powers would ignore
State lines. Here would be a big patch representing the domains
of
Vanderbilt; there Jay Gould's dominions would be brightly marked. In
another place would be set off the empire of Stanford and Huntington;
in another the newer empire of Henry Villard. The States and parts of
States that own the sway of the Pennsylvania Central would be
distinguished from those ruled by the Baltimore and Ohio; and so on.
In our National Senate, sovereign
members of the Union are supposed
to be represented; but what are more truly represented are railroad
longs and great moneyed interests, though occasionally a mine
jobber
from Nevada or Colorado, not inimical to the ruling powers, is
suffered to buy himself a seat for glory. And the Bench as well as
the Senate is being filled with corporation henchmen. A railroad king
makes his attorney a judge of last resort, as the great lord used to
make his chaplain a bishop.... ... Read the entire article
Henry George: The Condition of
Labor — An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII in response to Rerum Novarum (1891)
I have already referred generally to the defects that attach to all socialistic
remedies for the evil condition of labor, but respect for your Holiness dictates
that I should speak specifically, even though briefly, of the remedies proposed
or suggested by you.
Of these, the widest and strongest are that the state should restrict the
hours of labor, the employment of women and children, the unsanitary conditions
of workshops, etc. Yet how little may in this way be accomplished.
A strong, absolute ruler might hope by such regulations to alleviate
the conditions of chattel slaves. But the tendency of our times is toward
democracy,
and democratic states are necessarily weaker in paternalism, while in the
industrial slavery, growing out of private ownership of land, that prevails
in Christendom today, it is not the master who forces the slave to labor,
but the slave who urges the master to let him labor. Thus the greatest difficulty
in enforcing such regulations comes from those whom they are intended to
benefit. It is not, for instance, the masters who make it difficult to enforce
restrictions on child labor in factories, but the mothers, who, prompted
by poverty, misrepresent the ages of their children even to the masters,
and teach the children to misrepresent.
But while in large factories and mines regulations as to hours, ages, etc.,
though subject to evasion and offering opportunities for extortion and corruption,
may be to some extent enforced, how can they have any effect in those far
wider branches of industry where the laborer works for himself or for small
employers?
All such remedies are of the nature of the remedy for overcrowding that
is generally prescribed with them — the restriction under penalty of
the number who may occupy a room and the demolition of unsanitary buildings.
Since these measures have no tendency to increase house accommodation or
to augment ability to pay for it, the overcrowding that is forced back in
some places goes on in other places and to a worse degree. All such remedies
begin at the wrong end. They are like putting on brake and bit to hold in
quietness horses that are being lashed into frenzy; they are like trying
to stop a locomotive by holding its wheels instead of shutting off steam;
like attempting to cure smallpox by driving back its pustules. Men do not
overwork themselves because they like it; it is not in the nature of the
mother’s heart to send children to work when they ought to be at play;
it is not of choice that laborers will work under dangerous and unsanitary
conditions. These things, like overcrowding, come from the sting of poverty.
And so long as the poverty of which they are the expression is left untouched,
restrictions such as you indorse can have only partial and evanescent results.
The cause remaining, repression in one place can only bring out its effects
in other places, and the task you assign to the state is as hopeless as to
ask it to lower the level of the ocean by bailing out the sea.
Nor can the state cure poverty by regulating wages. It is as much beyond
the power of the state to regulate wages as it is to regulate the rates of
interest. Usury laws have been tried again and again, but the only effect
they have ever had has been to increase what the poorer borrowers must pay,
and for the same reasons that all attempts to lower by regulation the price
of goods have always resulted merely in increasing them. The general rate
of wages is fixed by the ease or difficulty with which labor can obtain access
to land, ranging from the full earnings of labor, where land is free, to
the least on which laborers can live and reproduce, where land is fully monopolized.
Thus, where it has been comparatively easy for laborers to get land, as in
the United States and in Australasia, wages have been higher than in Europe
and it has been impossible to get European laborers to work there for wages
that they would gladly accept at home; while as monopolization goes on under
the influence of private property in land, wages tend to fall, and the social
conditions of Europe to appear. Thus, under the partial yet substantial recognition
of common rights to land, of which I have spoken, the many attempts of the
British Parliament to reduce wages by regulation failed utterly. And so,
when the institution of private property in land had done its work in England,
all attempts of Parliament to raise wages proved unavailing. In the beginning
of this century it was even attempted to increase the earnings of laborers
by grants in aid of wages. But the only result was to lower commensurately
what wages employers paid.
The state could maintain wages above the tendency of the market (for as
I have shown labor deprived of land becomes a commodity), only by offering
employment to all who wish it; or by lending its sanction to strikes and
supporting them with its funds. Thus it is, that the thoroughgoing socialists
who want the state to take all industry into its hands are much more logical
than those timid socialists who propose that the state should regulate private
industry — but only a little.
The same hopelessness attends your suggestion that working-people should
be encouraged by the state in obtaining a share of the land. It is evident
that by this you mean that, as is now being attempted in Ireland, the state
shall buy out large landowners in favor of small ones, establishing what
are known as peasant proprietors. Supposing that this can be done even to
a considerable extent, what will be accomplished save to substitute a larger
privileged class for a smaller privileged class? What will be done for the
still larger class that must remain, the laborers of the agricultural districts,
the workmen of the towns, the proletarians of the cities? Is it not true,
as Professor De Laveleye says, that in such countries as Belgium, where peasant
proprietary exists, the tenants, for there still exist tenants, are rack-rented
with a mercilessness unknown in Ireland? Is it not true that in such countries
as Belgium the condition of the mere laborer is even worse than it is in
Great Britain, where large ownerships obtain? And if the state attempts to
buy up land for peasant proprietors will not the effect be, what is seen
today in Ireland, to increase the market value of land and thus make it more
difficult for those not so favored, and for those who will come after, to
get land? How, moreover, on the principle which you declare (36), that “to
the state the interests of all are equal, whether high or low,” will
you justify state aid to one man to buy a bit of land without also insisting
on state aid to another man to buy a donkey, to another to buy a shop, to
another to buy the tools and materials of a trade — state aid in short
to everybody who may be able to make good use of it or thinks that he could?
And are you not thus landed in communism — not the communism of the
early Christians and of the religious orders, but communism that uses the
coercive power of the state to take rightful property by force from those
who have, to give to those who have not? For the state has no purse of Fortunatus;
the state cannot repeat the miracle of the loaves and fishes; all that the
state can give, it must get by some form or other of the taxing power. And
whether it gives or lends money, or gives or lends credit, it cannot give
to those who have not, without taking from those who have.
But aside from all this, any scheme of dividing up land while maintaining
private property in land is futile. Small holdings cannot coexist with the
treatment of land as private property where civilization is materially advancing
and wealth augments. We may see this in the economic tendencies that in ancient
times were the main cause that transformed world-conquering Italy from a
land of small farms to a land of great estates. We may see it in the fact
that while two centuries ago the majority of English farmers were owners
of the land they tilled, tenancy has been for a long time the all but universal
condition of the English farmer. And now the mighty forces of steam and electricity
have come to urge concentration. It is in the United States that we may see
on the largest scale how their power is operating to turn a nation of landowners
into a nation of tenants. The principle is clear and irresistible. Material
progress makes land more valuable, and when this increasing value is left
to private owners land must pass from the ownership of the poor into the
ownership of the rich, just as diamonds so pass when poor men find them.
What the British government is attempting in Ireland is to build snow-houses
in the Arabian desert! to plant bananas in Labrador!
There is one way, and only one way, in which working-people in our civilization
may be secured a share in the land of their country, and that is the way
that we propose — the taking of the profits of landownership for the
community.
... read the whole letter
Alanna Hartzok: Earth
Rights Democracy: Public Finance based on Early Christian Teachings
Karl Williams: Social Justice In
Australia: ADVANCED KIT
THE
GREAT PARADOX
For a long time an idea was turning over in his head.
- Why are salaries in new countries always higher than in
old ones?
- Why do progress and poverty not only appear together, but
also drift farther and farther apart?
- Why are public as well as private charity impotent in
solving the problem with any permanence?
- Why do beggars, tramps and prostitutes cluster around
millionaires' districts?
In San Francisco he had seen the
growth of progress together with
poverty. A trip to New York showed him the process in its full
maturity. The shocking contrast between the most bare-faced opulence
with the most abject squalor turned into an obsession the need to find
an answer to the old question.
But he did not find that answer in New York. He found it in San
Francisco a few months later. During a horse ride in the hills east of
the city he dismounted to let the animal rest. Just to start
conversation he asked a teamster what the value of land was in the
district. "I don't know," answered the man, "but there is a man over
there asking 1000 dollars for an acre." What was happening "over there"
for an acre of land to be worth a fortune in the California of 1869?
The transcontinental railway was about to arrive. The land value
throughout Oakland was being catapulted to the stars with speculators
vying with each other to secure land titles before the arrival of those
who would need land to live and work.
"EUREKA!"
In a flash, George understood. Land value increases with the
increase
in population, and those who needed land had to pay for the privilege
of using it. But the land is the primary source of all that human
beings need to live. If there is such a thing as a universal right to
life, there must also be a universal right to the Global Commons
necessary for life. He who owns ends up controlling the destiny of him
who works. Words like "republicanism" or "democracy" may be
high-sounding, but empty.
The remedy suggests itself. To restore the control of land to
those who
use it, it is enough to take the rent of it as a social charge with
which to defray public expenditure. The rent of land, instead of ending
up in private pockets, would pay for defence, administration and the
social services. Put it another way, let whoever occupies land pay in
proportion to the quantity and quality of value subtracted from the
common resources of nature, not for value added on them by his/her own
exertion. And let all receive the value of those resources in the form
of public services. Nobody would thus be defrauded of the fruits of
their labour, and the load of taxation would cease to fall on
production.
There was nothing new in that
flash of
understanding. He had independently arrived at the conclusions of
feudalism, of Quesnay and of Turgot, without having ever heard of the
three. ... Read the
entire article
Dave Wetzel: Justice or
Injustice: The Locational Benefit Levy
We all have our own personal interpretation of how “justice” can be
achieved.
Often “justice” is interpreted in a very narrow legal sense and only in
reference to the judicial system, which has been designed to protect
the status quo. ...
Of course, all citizens (and subjects in the UK) -- need to know
exactly what are the legal boundaries within which society operates.
But, supposing those original rules are unfair and unjust. Then the
legal framework, being used to perpetuate an injustice -- does not make
that injustice moral and proper even if within the rules of
jurisprudence it is “legal.”
Obvious examples of this dislocation between immoral laws and natural
justice is
- South Africa's former policy of apartheid;
- the USA's former
segregated schools and buses;
- discrimination based on race, religion,
disability or sex;
- slavery;
- the oppression of women;
- Victorian
Britain's use of child labour and colonialism.
All these policies were
“lawful” according to the legal framework of their day but that veneer
of legality did not make these policies righteous and just.
Any society built on a basis of injustice will be burdened down with
its own predisposition towards self-destruction. Even the most
suppressed people will one-day, demand justice, rise up and overthrow
their oppressors.
Human survival demands justice. Wherever slavery or dictatorship has
been installed -- eventually, justice has triumphed and a more
democratic and fairer system has replaced it. It is safe to predict
that wherever slavery or dictatorship exists today -- it will be
superseded by a fairer and more just system.
Similarly, let's consider our distribution of natural resources.
By definition, natural resources are not made by human effort. Our
planet offers every inhabitant a bounty -- an amazing treasure chest of
wealth that can supply our needs for food, shelter and every aspect for
our survival.
Surely, “justice” demands that this natural wealth should be equally
available to all and that nobody should starve, be homeless or suffer
poverty simply because they are excluded from tapping in to this
enormous wealth that nature has provided. ...
If our whole economy, with the private possession of land and other
natural resources, is built upon an injustice -- then can any of us
really be surprised that we continue to live on a planet where wars
predominate, intolerance is common, crime is rife and where poverty and
starvation is the norm for a huge percentage of earth's population.
Is this inherited system really the best we can do?
There must be a method for fairly utilising the earth's natural
resources.
Referring to the rebuilding of
Iraq in
his recent speech to the American Congress, Tony Blair stated “We
promised Iraq democratic Government. We will deliver it. We promised
them the chance to use their oil wealth to build prosperity for all
their citizens, not a corrupt elite. We will do so”.
Thus, Tony Blair recognises the difference between political justice in
the form of a democratic Government and economic justice in the form of
sharing natural resources.
We have not heard any dissenting voice from this promise to share
Iraq's natural oil wealth for all the people of Iraq to enjoy the
benefits. But if it is so obviously
right and proper for the Iraqi people to share their natural
wealth – why is it not the practice to do the same in all nations?
No landowner can create land values. If this were the case, then an
entrepreurial landowner in the Scottish Highlands would be able to
create more value than an indolent landowner in the City of London.
No, land values arise because of natural advantages (eg fertility for
agricultural land or approximity to ports or harbours for commercial
sites) or because of the efforts of the whole community -- past and
present investment by both the public and private sectors, and the
activities of individuals all give rise to land values. Why do we not
advocate the sharing of these land values, which are as much a gift of
nature and probably in most western economies are worth much more than
Iraqi oil?
One solution would be to introduce a Location
Benefit Levy, where each site is valued, based on its optimum
permitted use and a levy is applied – a similar method to Britain's
commercial rates on buildings but based soley on the land value and
ignoring the condition of the building.
The outcome of this policy would be to give all citizens a share in the
natural wealth of the nation. ...
It is an injustice that landowners can speculate on empty sites,
denying their use for jobs or homes.
It is an injustice that a factory owner can sack all their workers,
smash the roof of their building to let in the rain and be rewarded
with elimination of their rates bill.
It is an injustice that the poorest residents pay the highest share of
their incomes in Council Tax.
It is an injustice that people are denied their share of the earth's
resources.
The Location Benefit Levy is a simple way to start addressing the
world's last great injustice. Read the whole article
Mason Gaffney: Sounding
the Revenue Potential of Land: Fifteen Lost Elements
Multiplier
effect of taxing absentee owners to spend funds locally Transferring
rents from absentees to be spent locally improves the State economic base
and balance of payments (except to the extent the State outsources its
work). Focusing taxes on land means absentees cannot remove the tax base
from our state. The worst they can do is sell it to residents, thus raising
the quality of life. California's
legislative analyst, William Hamm, estimated in 1978 that over fifty per
cent of the value of taxable property in California was owned by residents
of other states or nations. The potential impact of this factor
is enormous.
There is a curious silence on the matter. When it comes to discriminating
against immigrant workers, xenophobia fills the air. There is a hue and cry
against outsourcing. Taxing alien property, however, pushes a different button.
Yet, here is one instance where localism may be harnessed to help create a
more healthy society. The purpose of democracy is to represent the electorate,
not the absentee who stands between the resident and the resources of his homeland Read
the whole article
Weld Carter: A Clarion Call to Sanity, to Honesty, to Justice
Our problem today, as yesterday, and the days before, back to the earliest
recorded times, is POVERTY.
There are times when this problem is lesser. We call these "booms." There
are also times when the problem is greatly exacerbated. These are called "busts." But,
as the Bible says, "the poor have ye always with ye."
The purpose of this paper is to explore the core of the problem. It is not
the position that there is only one single error afoot in our social organizations.
There may be several, there may be only a few things to remedy. The position
is, as stated earlier, that there is one basic cause of the problem. Therefore,
the removal of this one basic error is the first, the primary step, for the
simple reason that, until this basic social evil is eradicated, no other reform
will avail. We will simply continue the boom and bust cycles until the economies
of the whole world are wrecked by inflation or by a nuclear war triggered by
the ongoing economic disaster.
Let us begin this study of the likely causes of our troubles by asking two
questions:
- Are we over-populated?
- Are the earth's resources inadequate for this population?
Our stage, of course, for making this study will be this world of ours, for it
is upon this world that the drama of human living is played out, with all its
joys and all its sorrows, with all its great achievements and all its failures,
with all its nobilities and all its wickedness.
Regardless of its size relative to other planets, with its circumference of
about twenty-five thousand miles, to any mere mortal who must walk to the station
and back each day, it is huge. Roughly ninety-six million miles separate the
sun from the earth on the latter's eliptical journey around the sun. At this
distance, the earth makes its annual journey in its elliptical curve and it
spins on its own canted axis. Because of this cant, the sun's rays are distributed
far more evenly, thus minimizing their damage and maximizing their benefits.
Consider the complementarity of nature in the case of the two forms of life
we call vegetable and animal, in their respective uses of the two gases, oxygen
and carbon dioxide, the waste product of each serving as the life-giving force
of the other. Any increase in the one will encourage a like response in the
other.
Marvel at the manner in which nature, with no help from man or beast, delivers
pure water to the highest lands, increasing it as to their elevation, thus
affording us a free ride downstream and free power as we desire it. Look with
awe at the variety and quantity of minerals with which this world is blessed,
and finally at the fecundity nature has bestowed so lavishly throughout both
animal and vegetable life: Take note of the number of corn kernels from a single
stalk that can be grown next year from a single kernel of this year's crop;
then think of the vastly greater yields from a single cherry pit or the seeds
of a single apple, or grape or watermelon; or, turning to the animal world,
consider the hen who averages almost an egg a day and the spawning fish as
examples of the prolificacy that is evident throughout the whole of the animal
world, including mankind.
If this marvelous earth is as rich in resources as portrayed in the foregoing
paragraph, then the problem must be one of distribution:
- how is the land distributed among the earth's inhabitants, and
- how are its products in turn distributed?
Land is universally treated as either public property or private property. Wars
are fought over land. Nowhere is it treated as common
property.
George has described this world as a "well-provisioned ship" and when one
considers the increasingly huge daily withdrawals of such provisions as coal
and petroleum as have occurred say over the past one hundred years, one must
but agree with this writer. But this is only a static view. Consider the
suggestion of some ten years ago that it would require the conversion of
less than 20%
the of the current annual growth of wood into alcohol to fuel all the motors
then being fueled by the then-conventional means. The dynamic picture of
the future is indeed awesome, and there is every indication that that characteristic
has the potential of endless expansion. So how is it that on so richly endowed
a Garden of Eden as this world of ours we have only been able to make of it
a hell on earth for vast numbers of people?
The answers are simple: we have permitted, nay we have even more
than that, encouraged, the gross misallocation of resources and a viciously
wicked
distribution of wealth, and we choose to be governed by those whom we, in
our ignorance,
have elected. ... read
the whole essay
Jeff Smith: Sharing Natural Rents to Sustain
Human Society
Rent rewarding eco-sense
Now wipe out the taxes, subsidies, liability limits, and rent retention. Instead,
replace all that with running government like a business. Charge full-market
value for state acknowledgements (the seven secret subsidies):
- corporate charters,
- standards waivers,
- utility franchises,
- monopoly patents,
|
- communication licenses,
- resource leases/claims, and
- land titles/deeds
|
Collecting rent for government-granted privileges would not only raise trillions
but also
whittle corporations down to a competitive size, less hazardous to
democracy.
Besides charging what privileges are worth, government should also replace
license with responsibility ("internalize the externalities"). To temper
the temptation to use lands both fragile and valuable, society could impose
surcharges
- an Ecology Security Deposit, Restoration Insurance, Emission Permits, and
fines when users exceed standards. To minimize all these charges, producers
would seek sustainable alternatives. Getting and sharing rent from land titles
is the centerpiece of this geonomic revenue reform. Each phase of such a
revenue shift motivates sustainable choices in its own way.
1. Get the rent. Having to
pay over rent to community makes speculation not worth the bother. So owners
use their land and resources more efficiently. Using some land more intensely
means using other land not at all. Plus, intense use augments the housing stock,
lowering the housing cost. Pittsburgh, while taxing land six times more than
buildings, enjoyed the most affordable housing of any major US city. More residents
are owner occupants who choose to improve their homes, plugging heat leaks,
etc.
2. De-tax wages and interest. Removing
such taxes while collecting rent moves investment funds in the opposite
direction, from extraction and speculation into advancing physical capital
and hyper-training labor. The resultant investment shift would accelerate
techno-progress, helping us get more from less.
3. De-subsidize favored
producers. Besides giving lobbyists a reason to contemplate a career
change, abolishing subsidies would force producers to cut waste, to call
on all the tools and techniques extolled by Amory Lovins and other green
industrialists.
4. Pay out the rent. Getting
money for nothing, would people still pursue mindless consumption of goodies
or switch to mindful consumption of leisure? The pressure to consume stuff
for prestige should be lessened by the increased equality in society. Everyone
would pay in land dues equal to the value of the nature they claim and
get back rent dividends equal to everyone else. These dues and dividends
would narrow the income gap.
The conserver ethic would have a context in which to grow, since community
is the crucible for morality. Stable neighborhoods put Pittsburgh's crime rate
on par with a small town, by far the lowest in the US. Where residents become
owner occupants, they participate more in community, even adopt environmental
values. Pittsburgh converted its most valuable location, where the three rivers
meet, into a public park. Not bad for a working class town twice named America's
Most Livable. . .. read the whole article
Judge Samuel Seabury: An Address delivered
upon the 100th anniversary of the birth of Henry George
WE are met to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Henry George.
We meet, therefore, in a spirit of joy and thanksgiving for the great life
which he devoted to the service of humanity. To very few of the children of
men is it given to act the part of a great teacher who makes an outstanding
contribution toward revealing the basic principles to which human society must
adhere if it is to walk in the way which leads to freedom. This Henry George
did, and in so doing he expressed himself with a clarity of thought and diction
which has rarely been surpassed. ...
The most serious threat to democracy which exists is that the democracies
themselves have not as yet achieved social justice for their own people. If
they would achieve it, they would have nothing to fear from the dictatorship
states. In this country we have approximately eleven million unemployed and
are now in the tenth year of an acute economic depression. We certainly cannot
claim to have achieved social justice. True, we offer many advantages over
what the despotisms offer, but in any country people will submit to regimentation
and political and social despotism rather than go without food and shelter.
In such circumstances, ignorant of the value of the liberty they surrender,
they will sell their birthright for a mess of pottage.
,,, The second principle to which I wish to refer is Henry George's advocacy
of freedom of trade among the nations — not free trade introduced overnight,
but freedom of trade as an end toward which the nations should move. When he
wrote his great work on "Protection or Free Trade," he demolished
the protectionist argument and in chapter after chapter he showed the absurdities
to which the protectionist principle led if carried to its logical conclusion.
But even he, penetrating as his vision was, could not foresee that mankind
was heading for a world order of economic nationalism and isolation, based
upon the principle of protection carried to its utmost extreme. And yet
that it is precisely the doctrine which is now currently accepted. If it
becomes
general, it can serve only to sow the seeds of destruction of that measure
of civilization which we now have and force a lowering of the standard
of living throughout the world.
There are two ways by which the people of one nation can acquire the property
or goods of the people of another nation. These are by war and by trade. There
are no other methods. The present tendency among civilized people to outlaw
trade must drive the states which prescribe such outlawry to acquire the property
and goods of other peoples by war. Early in man's struggle for existence the
resort to war was the common method adopted. With the advancement of civilization
men resorted to trade as a practical substitute for war. The masses of men
wish to trade with one another. The action of the states alone prevents them
from so doing. In prohibiting trade, the state gives an importance to territorial
boundaries which would not exist if freedom of trade existed. In accentuating
the importance of mere boundary disputes, rather than assuring the right of
peoples to trade with one another, the nations put the emphasis upon the precise
issue which is, itself, one of the most prolific causes of war.
All the great modern states are turning away from freedom of trade, and indeed,
from trade itself, and forbidding their people the right to earn their own
livelihood and to associate freely with one another in industry. In order to
accomplish this end they are compelled to regiment the lives of their people
under state bureaucracies and this can be accomplished only by a despotic state.
If the powers of the modern states are to be augmented by conferring upon them
the right to run all industry, despotism is inevitable. A dictator may, by
reducing the standard of living and regimenting the people, run all industry
within the state over which he rules, but a democracy, which, if it is to be
true to itself, must preserve individual initiative, can not do so without
transforming itself into a dictatorship. ... read the whole speech
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