Made Land, Reclaimed Land
Louis Post: Outlines of Louis F. Post's
Lectures,
with Illustrative Notes and Charts (1894) — Appendix: FAQ
Q40. Under the single tax theory what right have you to tax the value
of "made land," like the Back Bay of Boston? Is not such land
produced by labor?
A. The surface soil is produced by labor. But the foundation — the bottom
of a bay, a swamp, a river, or a hole, is not. "Made land" does not
differ economically from a house. Its materials are produced from one place to
another and adjusted to meet the demand. But nature in the case of the "made
land," as in that of the house, supplies the materials and the foundation.
The value of the Back Bay of Boston is chiefly the value of a location — a
communal value. The single tax would not take the value of "made land";
it would take the value of the space where the "made land" is. ... read
the book
Rev. A. C. Auchmuty: Gems from George,
a themed collection of excerpts from the writings of Henry
George (with links to sources)
HE term Land in political economy means the natural or passive element in
production, and includes the whole external world accessible to man, with
all its powers, qualities, and products, except perhaps those portions of
it which are for the time included in man's body or in his products, and
which therefore temporarily belong to the categories, man and wealth, passing
again in their reabsorption by nature into the category, land. — The
Science of Political Economy — unabridged:
Book III, Chapter 14: The Production of Wealth, Order of the Three Factors
of Production • abridged:
Part III, Chapter 10: Order of the Three Factors of Production
THAT land is only a passive factor in production must be carefully kept in mind.
. . . Land cannot act, it can only be acted upon. . . . Nor is this principle
changed or avoided when we use the word land as expressive of the people who
own land. . . .
That the persons whom we call landowners may contribute their labor or their
capital to production is of course true, but that they should contribute to production
as landowners, and by virtue of that ownership, is as ridiculously impossible
as that the belief of a lunatic in his ownership of the moon should be the cause
of her brilliancy. — The Science of Political Economy unabridged:
Book III, Chapter 15, The Production of Wealth: The First Factor of Production — Land • abridged:
Part III, Chapter 10: Order of the Three Factors of Production
I AM writing these pages on the shore of Long Island, where the Bay of
New York contracts to what is called the Narrows, nearly opposite the point
where our legalized robbers, the Custom-House officers, board incoming steamers
to ask strangers to take their first American swear, and where, if false
oaths really colored the atmosphere the air would be bluer than is the sky
on this gracious day. I turn from my writing-machine to the window, and drink
in, with a pleasure that never seems to pall, the glorious panorama.
"What do you see?" If in ordinary talk I were asked this, I should of course
say, "I see land and water and sky, ships and houses, and light clouds, and the
sun drawing to its setting over the low green hills of Staten Island and illuminating
all."
But if the question refer to the terms of political economy, I should say, "I
see land and wealth." Land, which is the natural factor of production; and
wealth, which is the natural factor so changed by the exertion of the human
factor, labor, as to fit it for the satisfaction of human desires. For water
and clouds, sky and sun, and the stars that will appear when the sun is sunk,
are, in the terminology of political economy, as much land as is the dry surface
of the earth to which we narrow the meaning of the word in ordinary talk. And
the window through which I look; the flowers in the garden; the planted trees
of the orchard; the cow that is browsing beneath them; the Shore Road under
the window; the vessels that lie at anchor near the bank, and the little pier
that juts out from it; the trans-Atlantic liner steaming through the channel;
the crowded pleasure-steamers passing by; the puffing tug with its line of
mud-scows; the fort and dwellings on the opposite side of the Narrows; the
lighthouse that will soon begin to cast its far-gleaming eye from Sandy Hook;
the big wooden elephant of Coney Island; and the graceful sweep of the Brooklyn
Bridge, that may be discovered from a little higher up; all alike fall into
the economic term wealth — land modified by labor so as to afford satisfaction
to human desires. All in this panorama that was before man came here, and would
remain were he to go, belongs to the economic category land; while all that
has been produced by labor belongs to the economic category wealth, so long
as it retains its quality of ministering to human desire.
But on the hither shore, in view from the window, is a little rectangular piece
of dry surface, evidently reclaimed from the line of water by filling in with
rocks and earth. What is that? In ordinary speech it is land, as distinguished
from water, and I should intelligibly indicate its origin by speaking of it
as "made land." But in the categories of political economy there is no place
for such a term as "made land." For the term land refers only and exclusively
to productive powers derived wholly from nature and not at all from industry,
and whatever is, and in so far as it is, derived from land by the exertion
of labor, is wealth. This bit of dry surface raised above the level
of the water by filling in stones and soil, is, in the economic category, not
land but wealth. It has land below it and around it, and the material of which
it is composed has been drawn from land; but in itself it is, in the proper
speech of political economy, wealth; just as truly as the ships I behold are
not land but wealth, though they too have land below them and around them and
are composed of material drawn from land. — The Science of Political
Economy unabridged:
Book IV, Chapter 6, The Distribution of Wealth: Cause of Confusion as to Property • abridged
... go to "Gems from George"
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