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| Wealth and Want | |||||||
| ... because democracy alone is not enough to produce widely shared prosperity. | |||||||
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Weld Carter: An Introduction to Henry George Another area in which George
applied these inherent differences
between land and products was the field of taxation. To determine the
incidence of taxation, George had to know what was to be taxed,
products or the value of land. In each case he traced out the effect
from the essential nature of the thing to be taxed: "...all taxes
upon things of unfixed quantity increase prices, and in the course of
exchange are shifted from seller to buyer, increasing as they go.
...If we impose a tax upon buildings, the users of buildings must
finally pay it, for the erection of buildings will cease until
building rents become high enough to pay the regular profit and the
tax besides. ...In this way all taxes which add to prices are shifted
from hand to hand, increasing as they go, until they ultimately rest
upon consumers, who thus pay much more than is received by the
government. Now, the way taxes raise prices is by increasing the cost
of production, and checking supply. But land is not a thing of human
production, and taxes upon...[land value] cannot check
supply. Therefore, though a tax on...[land value] compels the
land owners to pay more, it gives them no power to obtain more for
the use of their land, as it in no way tends to reduce the supply of
land. On the contrary, by compelling those who hold land on
speculation to sell or let for what they can get, a tax on land
values tends to increase the competition between owners, and thus to
reduce the price of land."
Here, then is another derivative difference between land and products, according to George: taxation on products causes an increase in the price of products; taxation on the value of land causes a drop in the price of land. ... read the whole article |
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Wealth
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... because democracy
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