Henry George, author of Progress and Poverty, argued that, while
some forms of wealth are produced by human activity, and are rightly the
property of the producers (or those who have obtained them from the previous
owners by voluntary gift or exchange), land and natural resources are bestowed
by God on the human race, and that every one of the N inhabitants of the
earth has a claim to 1/Nth of the coal beds, 1/Nth of the oil wells, 1/Nth
of the mines, and 1/Nth of the fertile soil. God wills a society where everyone
may sit in peace under his own vine and his own fig tree.
The Law of Moses undertook to implement this by making the ownership of
land hereditary, with a man's land divided among his sons (or, in the absence
of sons, his daughters), and prohibiting the permanent sale of land. (See
Leviticus 25:13-17,23.) The most a man might do with his land is sell the
use of it until the next Jubilee year, an amnesty declared once every fifty
years, when all debts were cancelled and all land returned to its hereditary
owner.
Henry George's proposed implementation is to tax all land
at about 99.99% of its rental value, leaving the owner of record enough to
cover his bookkeeping
expenses. The resulting revenues would be divided equally among the natural
owners of the land, viz. the people of the country, with everyone receiving
a dividend check regularly for the use of his share of the earth (here I
am anticipating what I think George would have suggested if he had written
in the 1990's rather than the 1870's). ... read the whole biography
"They shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they
shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not build, and
another inhabit; they shall not plant, another eat: for as the days of a
tree are the days of people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of
hands." [Isaiah, lxv, 21, 22]
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