Thomas Jefferson and Jeffersonian
Ideals
Thomas Jefferson understood man's necessary connection to
the land, and recognized that without access to land guaranteed, equality
could not be maintained.
All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights
of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open
to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been
born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred,
ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.
— Thomas Jefferson, letter to
Roger C. Weightman, June 26, 1826,
before the celebration of the 50th anniversary
of the Declaration of Independence
Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, dated October 28, 1785:
Legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only
taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural
affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore
to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations
in equal degree, is a politic measure, and a practicable one. Another means
of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from
taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property
in geometrical progression as they rise.
Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed
poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended
as to violate
natural right. The earth is given as a commonstock for man to labour
and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated,
we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from
the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth
returns to the unemployed.
It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who cannot find
employment but who can find uncultivated land shall be at liberty to cultivate
it, paying a moderate rent. But it is not too soon to provide by every
possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion
of land. The small land holders are the most precious part of a state.
Henry George: The Common Sense of
Taxation (1881 article)
The true purposes of government are well stated in the preamble to the
Constitution of the United States, as they are in the Declaration of
Independence. To insure the general peace, to promote the general welfare,
to secure to each individual the inalienable rights to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness — these are the proper ends of government,
and are therefore the ends which in every scheme of taxation should be
kept in mind.
As to amount of taxation, there is no principle which imposes any arbitrary
limit. Heavy taxation is better for any community than light taxation,
if the increased revenue be used in doing by public agencies things which
could not be done, or could not be as well and economically done, by
private agencies. Taxes could be lightened in the city of New York by
dispensing with street-lamps and disbanding the police force. But would
a reduction in taxation gained in this way be for the benefit of the
people of New York and make New York a more desirable place to live in?
Or if it should be found that heat and light could be conducted through
the streets at public expense and supplied to each house at but a small
fraction of the cost of supplying them by individual effort, or that
the city railroads could be run at public expense so as to give every
one transportation at very much less than it now costs the average resident,
the increased taxation necessary for these purposes would not be increased
burden, and in spite of the larger taxation required, New York would
become a more desirable place to live in. It is a mistake to condemn
taxation as bad merely because it is high; it is a mistake to impose
by constitutional provision, as in many of our States has been advocated,
and in some of our States has been done, any restriction upon the amount
of taxation. A restriction upon the incurring of public indebtedness
is another matter. In nothing is the far-reaching statesmanship of Jefferson
more clearly shown than in his proposition that all public obligations
should be deemed void after a certain brief term — a proposition
which he grounds upon the self-evident truth that the earth belongs in
usufruct to the living, and that the dead have no control over it, and
can give no title to any part of it. But restriction upon public debts
is a very different thing from restriction upon the power of taxation,
and reasons which urge the one do not apply to the other. Nor is increased
taxation necessarily proof of governmental extravagance. Increase in
taxation is in the order of social development, for the reason that social
development tends to the doing of things collectively that in a ruder
state are done individually, to the giving to government of new functions
and the imposing of new duties. Our public schools and libraries and
parks, our signal service and fish commissions and agricultural bureaus
and grasshopper investigations, are evidences of this. ... read the whole article
a synopsis of Robert V. Andelson and
James M. Dawsey: From
Wasteland to Promised land:
Liberation Theology for a Post-Marxist World
Because
George asserted, "We must make
land common property," he is sometimes erroneously regarded as an
advocate of land nationalization. But, as we have seen, he was nothing
of the sort. The expropriation of land makes it practically
impossible to fairly compensate people for the improvements to land,
which are their legitimate property. George's system
renders to the community what is due to the community, without doing
any violence to the wealth that has been fairly earned by productive
workers.
Common property in land is sometimes discredited by equation
with what
Garrett Hardin calls "The Tragedy of
the Commons." Referring to the common lands that were a major
English institution until the mid-nineteenth century, Hardin describes
the tendency of individuals, each rationally pursuing self-interest, to
overgraze, denude, and use the commons as a cesspool. That which
belongs to everybody in this sense is, indeed, in danger of being
valued and maintained by nobody.
The enclosure movement
ultimately brought an end to this ecologically destructive process, but
not without literally pushing people off the land, exacting a baneful
price in human misery that might well be termed "The Tragedy of the Enclosures." George hit upon a way of securing the
benefits of both commons and enclosures, while at the same time
avoiding their evils. Land value taxation rectifies distribution so
that all receive wealth in proportion to their contribution to its
production. This liberates the economic system from exploiters who
contribute little or nothing. Apportioning the wealth pie fairly
increases the incentive to increase the size of the pie. The market becomes in
practice what capitalist theory alleges it to be -- a profoundly
cooperative process of voluntary exchange of goods and services. Paradoxical
though it may seem, the only way the individual may be assured what
properly belongs to him or her is for society to take what properly
belongs to it: The ideal of Jeffersonian individualism requires for its
actualization the socialization of rent.
Just as Marxists err in
insisting that
everything be socialized, extreme capitalists err in insisting that
everything (even public parks and forests!) be privatized. The middle way is to recognize
society's claim to what nature and society create -- the value of land
and its rent -- so that working people, including entrepreneurs, may
claim their full share of what they create. In this balanced
approach can be found the authentic verities respectively inherent in
socialism and individualism. Read the whole synopsis
Dan Sullivan: Are you a Real
Libertarian, or a ROYAL Libertarian?
Classical liberals recognized
that exclusive access to land, and
especially to more land than one was using, was a privilege that
should be paid for, thereby eliminating the need for taxes. It is not
a fee for using land, but a fee for the state privilege of denying
use of that land to everyone else.
Men did not make the
earth.... It is the value of the
improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual
property.... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for
the land which he holds. --Tom Paine, "Agrarian
Justice," paragraphs 11 to 15
Another means of
silently lessening the inequality of [landed]
property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to
tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they
rise. --Thomas Jefferson
Today's land value tax advocates
consider graduated land value tax
to be unnecessary and problematic, leading to artificial subdivision
(and phony subdivision) of land. The point is that Jefferson, to whom
libertarians pay homage, considered land monopoly a great evil and
land value tax a remedy, as did many other classical liberals:
Ground rents are a
species of revenue which the owner,
in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. Ground
rents are, therefore, perhaps a species of revenue which can best bear
to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them. --Adam Smith
Landlords grow richer in their sleep, without working,
risking,
or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does
from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community
and not to the individual who might hold title. --John Stuart Mill ... Read
the whole piece
Fred E. Foldvary — The
Ultimate Tax Reform:
Public Revenue from Land Rent
Thomas Jefferson believed “the Earth is given as a common stock for
men to labour and live on.”15 In 1797, he suggested “a land tax
supply the means by which the individual States were to contribute their quotas
of revenue to the Federal Government.”16
From 1778 to the adoption of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, the United
States was governed by the Articles of Confederation. Article VII stated
the expenses
of the Confederation shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which
shall be supplied by the several states, in proportion to the value of
all land within each state, granted
to or surveyed for any person, as such land and the buildings and improvements
thereon shall be estimated according to such mode as the United States
in Congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint. The
taxes for paying
that proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction
of the legislatures of the several states within the time agreed upon
by the United
States in Congress assembled.17
Thus, the states would levy taxes and each would pass on a share of the federal
budget based on its land value. Individuals would pay taxes only to their state
and local governments.18 ... read the whole document
Peter Barnes: Capitalism
3.0 — Chapter 7: Universal Birthrights (pages 101-116)
The Idea of Birthrights
John Locke’s response to royalty’s claim of divine right
was the idea of everyone’s inherent right to life, liberty, and
property. Thomas Jefferson, in drafting America’s Declaration of
Independence, changed Locke’s trinity to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. These, Jefferson and his collaborators agreed,
are gifts from the creator that can’t be taken away. Put slightly
differently, they’re universal birthrights.
The Constitution and its amendments added meat to these elegant bones.
They guaranteed such birthrights as free speech, due process, habeas
corpus, speedy public trials, and secure homes and property. Wisely,
the Ninth Amendment affirmed that “the enumeration in the Constitution,
of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others
retained by the people.” In that spirit, others have since been
added.
If we were to analyze the expansion of American birthrights, we’d
see a series of waves. The first wave consisted of rights against the
state. The second included rights against unequal treatment based on
race, nationality, gender, or sexual orientation. The third wave — which,
historically speaking, is just beginning — consists of rights not
against things, but for things — free public education, collective
bargaining for wages, security in old age. They can be thought of as
rights necessary for the pursuit of happiness. ... read
the whole chapter
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