Enough and As Good
Rev. A. C. Auchmuty: Gems from George,
a themed collection of excerpts from the writings of Henry
George (with links to sources)
IF we are all here by the equal permission of the Creator, we are all
here with an equal title to the enjoyment of His bounty — with an equal
right to the use of all that nature so impartially offers. This is a right
which is natural and inalienable; it is a right which vests in every human
being as he enters the world, and which, during his continuance in the world,
can be limited only by the equal rights of others. There is in nature no such
thing as a fee simple in land. There is on earth no power which can rightfully
make a grant of exclusive ownership in land. If all existing men were to unite
to grant away their equal rights, they could not grant away the right of those
who follow them. For what are we but tenants for a day? Have we made the earth
that we should determine the rights of those who after us shall tenant it in
their turn? The Almighty, who created the earth for man and man for the earth,
has entailed it upon all the generations of the children of men by a decree
written upon the constitution of all things — a decree which no human
action can bar and no prescription determine, Let the parchments be ever so
many, or possession ever so long, natural justice can recognize no right in
one man to the possession and enjoyment of land that is not equally the right
of all his fellows. — Progress & Poverty — Book
VII, Chapter 1, Justice of the Remedy: Injustice of private property in land
HAS the first comer at a banquet the right to turn back all the chairs
and claim that none of the other guests shall partake of the food provided,
except as they make terms with him? Does the first man who presents a ticket
at the door of a theater and passes in, acquire by his priority the right
to shut the doors and have the performance go on for him alone? Does the
first passenger who enters a railroad car obtain the right to scatter his
baggage over all the seats and compel the passengers who come in after him
to stand up?
The cases are perfectly analogous. We arrive and we depart, guests at a banquet
continually spread, spectators and participants in an entertainment where there
is room for all who come; passengers from station to station, on an orb that
whirls through space — our rights to take and possess cannot be exclusive;
they must be bounded everywhere by the equal rights of others. Just as the
passenger in a railroad car may spread himself and his baggage over as many
seats as he pleases, until other passengers come in, so may a settler take
and use as much land as he chooses, until it is needed by others — a
fact which is shown by the land acquiring a value — when his right must
be curtailed by the equal rights of the others, and no priority of appropriation
can give a right which will bar these equal rights of others. — Progress & Poverty — Book
VII, Chapter 1, Justice of the Remedy: Injustice of private property in land
... go to "Gems from George"
from http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/tma68/geolib.htm
What Is Geolibertarianism?
Geolibertarians are simply libertarians who take the principle of self-ownership
to its logical conclusion: Just as the right to one's self implies the right
to the fruit of one's labor (i.e., the right to property), the right to the
fruit of one's labor implies the right to labor, and the right to labor implies
the right to labor — somewhere. Hence John
Locke's proviso that one has "property" in land only to the
extent that there is "enough, and as good left in common for others." When
there is not, land begins to have rental value.
Thus, the rental value of land reflects the extent to which Locke's proviso
has been violated, thereby making community-collection of rent, or CCR, a
just and necessary means of upholding the Lockean principle of private property.
In the late 19th century CCR was known as the "Single Tax"— a
term that was (and is) used to denote Henry
George's proposal to abolish all taxes save for a single "tax" on
the value of land, irrespective of the value of improvements in or on it.
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