Possession
Georgists are not opposed to private property. Indeed,
we recognize it as a fundamental right and a basis for human progress.
One must
have secure title to land before one can be comfortable investing
in improvements to
it, be
they
as
short-term
as planting a crop or as long-term as building a skyscraper. But
property rights are not monolithic or unlimited. Elsewhere
on this website, you'll find a list
of nine kinds of property rights. Are individuals entitled to privatize
them all, or are some different from others?
There was a sixties song with the lyrics "take what you need and leave
the rest, but they should never have taken the very best."
Georgists say "pay for what you take, not for what you make." For
the piece of land you call your own, you owe your fellow citizens — the
community — payment,
every month. But then whatever you create from it is yours to keep (assuming
of course,
that you don't harm others or harm the environment in the process).
Poverty deepens as wealth increases, and wages are forced down while
productive power grows, because land, which is the source of all wealth
and the field of all labor, is monopolized. To extirpate poverty, to
make wages what justice commands they should be, the full earnings
of the laborer, we must therefore substitute for the individual ownership
of land a common ownership.*
*By the phrase "common ownership" of land,
Henry George did not mean that land should be held in common or
by the State, nor did he propose to interfere with the existing
system of land tenures. (See Sections 7 and 12, post.) As in this
condensation much of George's argument necessarily has been omitted,
the following extracts from his later work "Protection or
Free Trade," chapter XXVI, are appended to make his position
clear to the present reader.
"No one would sow a crop, or build
a house, or open a mine, or plant an orchard, or cut a drain, so
long as any one else could come in and turn him out of the land
in which or on which such improvement must be fixed. Thus is it
absolutely necessary to the proper use and improvement of land
that society should secure to the user and improver safe possession.
... We can leave land now being used in the secure possession of
those using it. ... on condition that those who hold land shall
pay to the community a ... rent based on the value of the privilege
the individual receives from the community in being accorded the
exclusive use of this much of the common property, and which should
have no reference to any improvement he has made in or on it, or
to any profit due to the use of his labor and capital. In this
way all would be placed on an equality in regard to the use and
enjoyment of those natural elements which are clearly the common
heritage."
Henry George: The
Condition of Labor — An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII in response
to Rerum
Novarum (1891)
As to the use of land, we hold: That —
While the right of ownership that justly attaches to things produced
by labor cannot attach to land, there may attach to land a right of possession.
As your Holiness says, “God has not granted the earth to mankind
in general in the sense that all without distinction can deal with it
as they please,” and regulations necessary for its best use may
be fixed by human laws. But such regulations must conform to the moral
law — must secure to all equal participation in the advantages
of God’s general bounty. The principle is the same as where a human
father leaves property equally to a number of children. Some of the things
thus left may be incapable of common use or of specific division. Such
things may properly be assigned to some of the children, but only under
condition that the equality of benefit among them all be preserved.
In the rudest social state, while industry consists in hunting, fishing,
and gathering the spontaneous fruits of the earth, private possession
of land is not necessary. But as men begin to cultivate the ground and
expend their labor in permanent works, private possession of the land
on which labor is thus expended is needed to secure the right of property
in the products of labor. For who would sow if not assured of the exclusive
possession needed to enable him to reap? who would attach costly works
to the soil without such exclusive possession of the soil as would enable
him to secure the benefit?
This right of private possession in things created by God is however
very different from the right of private ownership in things produced
by labor. The one is limited, the other unlimited, save in cases when
the dictate of self-preservation terminates all other rights. The purpose
of the one, the exclusive possession of land, is merely to secure the
other, the exclusive ownership of the products of labor; and it can never
rightfully be carried so far as to impair or deny this. While any one
may hold exclusive possession of land so far as it does not interfere
with the equal rights of others, he can rightfully hold it no further.
Thus Cain and Abel, were there only two men on earth, might by agreement
divide the earth between them. Under this compact each might claim exclusive
right to his share as against the other. But neither could rightfully
continue such claim against the next man born. For since no one comes
into the world without God’s permission, his presence attests his
equal right to the use of God’s bounty. For them to refuse him
any use of the earth which they had divided between them would therefore
be for them to commit murder. And for them to refuse him any use of the
earth, unless by laboring for them or by giving them part of the products
of his labor he bought it of them, would be for them to commit theft.
...
God’s laws do not change. Though their applications may alter with
altering conditions, the same principles of right and wrong that hold
when men are few and industry is rude also hold amid teeming populations
and complex industries. In our cities of millions and our states of scores
of millions, in a civilization where the division of labor has gone so
far that large numbers are hardly conscious that they are land-users,
it still remains true that we are all land animals and can live only
on land, and that land is God’s bounty to all, of which no one
can be deprived without being murdered, and for which no one can be compelled
to pay another without being robbed. But even in a state of society where
the elaboration of industry and the increase of permanent improvements
have made the need for private possession of land wide-spread, there
is no difficulty in conforming individual possession with the equal right
to land. For as soon as any piece of land will yield to the possessor
a larger return than is had by similar labor on other land a value attaches
to it which is shown when it is sold or rented. Thus, the value of the
land itself, irrespective of the value of any improvements in or on it,
always indicates the precise value of the benefit to which all are entitled
in its use, as distinguished from the value which, as producer or successor
of a producer, belongs to the possessor in individual right.
To combine the advantages of private possession with the justice of
common ownership it is only necessary therefore to take for common uses
what value attaches to land irrespective of any exertion of labor on
it. The principle is the same as in the case referred to, where a human
father leaves equally to his children things not susceptible of specific
division or common use. In that case such things would be sold or rented
and the value equally applied.
It is on this common-sense principle that we, who term ourselves single-tax
men, would have the community act.
We do not propose to assert equal rights to land by keeping land common,
letting any one use any part of it at any time. We do not propose the
task, impossible in the present state of society, of dividing land in
equal shares; still less the yet more impossible task of keeping it so
divided.
We propose — leaving land in the private possession of individuals,
with full liberty on their part to give, sell or bequeath it — simply
to levy on it for public uses a tax that shall equal the annual value
of the land itself, irrespective of the use made of it or the improvements
on it. And since this would provide amply for the need of public revenues,
we would accompany this tax on land values with the repeal of all taxes
now levied on the products and processes of industry — which taxes,
since they take from the earnings of labor, we hold to be infringements
of the right of property.
This we propose, not as a cunning device of human ingenuity, but as
a conforming of human regulations to the will of God.
God cannot contradict himself nor impose on his creatures laws that
clash.
If it be God’s command to men that they should not steal — that
is to say, that they should respect the right of property which each
one has in the fruits of his labor;
And if he be also the Father of all men, who in his common bounty has
intended all to have equal opportunities for sharing;
Then, in any possible stage of civilization, however elaborate, there
must be some way in which the exclusive right to the products of industry
may be reconciled with the equal right to land.
If the Almighty be consistent with himself, it cannot be, as say those
socialists referred to by you, that in order to secure the equal participation
of men in the opportunities of life and labor we must ignore the right
of private property. Nor yet can it be, as you yourself in the Encyclical
seem to argue, that to secure the right of private property we must ignore
the equality of right in the opportunities of life and labor. To say
the one thing or the other is equally to deny the harmony of God’s
laws.
But, the private possession of land, subject to the payment to the community
of the value of any special advantage thus given to the individual, satisfies
both laws, securing to all equal participation in the bounty of the Creator
and to each the full ownership of the products of his labor. ...
For refusal to take for public purposes the increasing values that attach
to land with social growth is to necessitate the getting of public revenues
by taxes that lessen production, distort distribution and corrupt society.
It is to leave some to take what justly belongs to all; it is to forego
the only means by which it is possible in an advanced civilization to
combine the security of possession that is necessary to improvement with
the equality of natural opportunity that is the most important of all
natural rights. It is thus at the basis of all social life to set up
an unjust inequality between man and man, compelling some to pay others
for the privilege of living, for the chance of working, for the advantages
of civilization, for the gifts of their God. But it is even more than
this. The very robbery that the masses of men thus suffer gives rise
in advancing communities to a new robbery. For the value that with the
increase of population and social advance attaches to land being suffered
to go to individuals who have secured ownership of the land, it prompts
to a forestalling of and speculation in land wherever there is any prospect
of advancing population or of coming improvement, thus producing an artificial
scarcity of the natural elements of life and labor, and a strangulation
of production that shows itself in recurring spasms of industrial depression
as disastrous to the world as destructive wars. It is this that is driving
men from the old countries to the new countries, only to bring there
the same curses. It is this that causes our material advance not merely
to fail to improve the condition of the mere worker, but to make the
condition of large classes positively worse. It is this that in our richest
Christian countries is giving us a large population whose lives are harder,
more hopeless, more degraded than those of the veriest savages. It is
this that leads so many men to think that God is a bungler and is constantly
bringing more people into his world than he has made provision for; or
that there is no God, and that belief in him is a superstition which
the facts of life and the advance of science are dispelling. ...
Your Holiness will see from the explanation I have given that the reform
we propose, like all true reforms, has both an ethical and an economic
side. By ignoring the ethical side, and pushing our proposal merely as
a reform of taxation, we could avoid the objections that arise from confounding
ownership with possession and attributing to private property in land
that security of use and improvement that can be had even better without
it. All that we seek practically is the legal abolition, as fast as possible,
of taxes on the products and processes of labor, and the consequent concentration
of taxation on land values irrespective of improvements. To put our proposals
in this way would be to urge them merely as a matter of wise public expediency.
...
Your use, in so many passages of your Encyclical, of the inclusive term “property” or “private” property,
of which in morals nothing can be either affirmed or denied, makes your
meaning, if we take isolated sentences, in many places ambiguous. But
reading it as a whole, there can be no doubt of your intention that private
property in land shall be understood when you speak merely of private
property. With this interpretation, I find that the reasons you urge
for private property in land are eight. Let us consider them in order
of presentation. You urge:
1. That what is bought with rightful property is rightful property.
(RN, paragraph 5) ...
2. That private property in land proceeds from man’s gift of reason.
(RN, paragraphs 6-7.) ...
3. That private property in land deprives no one of the use of land.
(RN, paragraph 8.) ...
4. That Industry expended on land gives ownership in the land itself.
(RN, paragraphs 9-10.) ...
5. That private property in land has the support of the common opinion
of mankind, and has conduced to peace and tranquillity, and that it is
sanctioned by Divine Law. (RN, paragraph 11.) ...
6. That fathers should provide for their children and that private property
in land is necessary to enable them to do so. (RN, paragraphs 14-17.)
...
7. That the private ownership of land stimulates industry, increases
wealth, and attaches men to the soil and to their country. (RN, paragraph
51.) ...
8. That the right to possess private property in land is from nature,
not from man; that the state has no right to abolish it, and that to
take the value of landownership in taxation would be unjust and cruel
to the private owner. (RN, paragraph 51.) ...
2. That private property in land proceeds from man’s
gift of reason. (6-7.)
In the second place your Holiness argues that man possessing reason
and forethought may not only acquire ownership of the fruits of the earth,
but also of the earth itself, so that out of its products he may make
provision for the future.
Reason, with its attendant forethought, is indeed the distinguishing
attribute of man; that which raises him above the brute, and shows, as
the Scriptures declare, that he is created in the likeness of God. And
this gift of reason does, as your Holiness points out, involve the need
and right of private property in whatever is produced by the exertion
of reason and its attendant forethought, as well as in what is produced
by physical labor. In truth, these elements of man’s production
are inseparable, and labor involves the use of reason. It is by his reason
that man differs from the animals in being a producer, and in this sense
a maker. Of themselves his physical powers are slight, forming as it
were but the connection by which the mind takes hold of material things,
so as to utilize to its will the matter and forces of nature. It is mind,
the intelligent reason, that is the prime mover in labor, the essential
agent in production.
The right of private ownership does therefore indisputably attach to
things provided by man’s reason and forethought. But it cannot
attach to things provided by the reason and forethought of God!
To illustrate: Let us suppose a company traveling through the desert
as the Israelites traveled from Egypt. Such of them as had the forethought
to provide themselves with vessels of water would acquire a just right
of property in the water so carried, and in the thirst of the waterless
desert those who had neglected to provide themselves, though they might
ask water from the provident in charity, could not demand it in right.
For while water itself is of the providence of God, the presence of this
water in such vessels, at such place, results from the providence of
the men who carried it. Thus they have to it an exclusive right.
But suppose others use their forethought in pushing ahead and appropriating
the springs, refusing when their fellows come up to let them drink of
the water save as they buy it of them. Would such forethought give any
right?
Your Holiness, it is not the forethought of carrying water where it
is needed, but the forethought of seizing springs, that you seek to defend
in defending the private ownership of land!
Let me show this more fully, since it may be worth while to meet those
who say that if private property in land be not just, then private property
in the products of labor is not just, as the material of these products
is taken from land. It will be seen on consideration that all of man’s
production is analogous to such transportation of water as we have supposed.
In growing grain, or smelting metals, or building houses, or weaving
cloth, or doing any of the things that constitute producing, all that
man does is to change in place or form preexisting matter. As a producer
man is merely a changer, not a creator; God alone creates. And since
the changes in which man’s production consists inhere in matter
so long as they persist, the right of private ownership attaches the
accident to the essence, and gives the right of ownership in that natural
material in which the labor of production is embodied. Thus water, which
in its original form and place is the common gift of God to all men,
when drawn from its natural reservoir and brought into the desert, passes
rightfully into the ownership of the individual who by changing its place
has produced it there.
But such right of ownership is in reality a mere right of temporary
possession. For though man may take material from the storehouse of nature
and change it in place or form to suit his desires, yet from the moment
he takes it, it tends back to that storehouse again. Wood decays, iron
rusts, stone disintegrates and is displaced, while of more perishable
products, some will last for only a few months, others for only a few
days, and some disappear immediately on use. Though, so far as we can
see, matter is eternal and force forever persists; though we can neither
annihilate nor create the tiniest mote that floats in a sunbeam or the
faintest impulse that stirs a leaf, yet in the ceaseless flux of nature,
man’s work of moving and combining constantly passes away. Thus
the recognition of the ownership of what natural material is embodied
in the products of man never constitutes more than temporary possession — never
interferes with the reservoir provided for all. As taking water from
one place and carrying it to another place by no means lessens the store
of water, since whether it is drunk or spilled or left to evaporate,
it must return again to the natural reservoirs — so is it with
all things on which man in production can lay the impress of his labor.
Hence, when you say that man’s reason puts it within his right
to have in stable and permanent possession not only things that perish
in the using, but also those that remain for use in the future, you are
right in so far as you may include such things as buildings, which with
repair will last for generations, with such things as food or fire-wood,
which are destroyed in the use. But when you infer that man can have
private ownership in those permanent things of nature that are the reservoirs
from which all must draw, you are clearly wrong. Man may indeed hold
in private ownership the fruits of the earth produced by his labor, since
they lose in time the impress of that labor, and pass again into the
natural reservoirs from which they were taken, and thus the ownership
of them by one works no injury to others. But he cannot so own the earth
itself, for that is the reservoir from which must constantly be drawn
not only the material with which alone men can produce, but even their
very bodies.
The conclusive reason why man cannot claim ownership in the earth itself
as he can in the fruits that he by labor brings forth from it, is in
the facts stated by you in the very next paragraph (7), when you truly
say:
Man’s needs do not die out, but recur; satisfied today, they
demand new supplies tomorrow. Nature, therefore, owes to man a storehouse
that
shall never fail, the daily supply of his daily wants. And this he
finds only in the inexhaustible fertility of the earth.
By man you mean all men. Can what nature owes to all men be made the
private property of some men, from which they may debar all other men?
Let me dwell on the words of your Holiness, “Nature, therefore,
owes to man a storehouse that shall never fail.” By Nature you
mean God. Thus your thought, that in creating us, God himself has incurred
an obligation to provide us with a storehouse that shall never fail,
is the same as is thus expressed and carried to its irresistible conclusion
by the Bishop of Meath:
God was perfectly free in the act by which He created us; but having
created us he bound himself by that act to provide us with the means
necessary for our subsistence. The land is the only source of this kind
now known to us. The land, therefore, of every country is the common
property of the people of that country, because its real owner, the Creator
who made it, has transferred it as a voluntary gift to them. “Terram
autem dedit filiis hominum.” Now, as every individual in that country
is a creature and child of God, and as all his creatures are equal in
his sight, any settlement of the land of a country that would exclude
the humblest man in that country from his share of the common inheritance
would be not only an injustice and a wrong to that man, but, moreover,
be AN IMPIOUS RESISTANCE TO THE BENEVOLENT INTENTIONS OF HIS CREATOR.
...
4. That Industry expended on land gives ownership in the land
itself. (9-10.)
Your Holiness next contends that industry expended on land gives a right
to ownership of the land, and that the improvement of land creates benefits
indistinguishable and inseparable from the land itself.
This contention, if valid, could only justify the ownership of land
by those who expend industry on it. It would not justify private property
in land as it exists. On the contrary, it would justify a gigantic no-rent
declaration that would take land from those who now legally own it, the
landlords, and turn it over to the tenants and laborers. And if it also
be that improvements cannot be distinguished and separated from the land
itself, how could the landlords claim consideration even for improvements
they had made?
But your Holiness cannot mean what your words imply. What you really
mean, I take it, is that the original justification and title of landownership
is in the expenditure of labor on it. But neither can this justify private
property in land as it exists. For is it not all but universally true
that existing land titles do not come from use, but from force or fraud?
Take Italy! Is it not true that the greater part of the land of Italy
is held by those who so far from ever having expended industry on it
have been mere appropriators of the industry of those who have? Is this
not also true of Great Britain and of other countries? Even in the United
States, where the forces of concentration have not yet had time fully
to operate and there has been some attempt to give land to users, it
is probably true today that the greater part of the land is held by those
who neither use it nor propose to use it themselves, but merely hold
it to compel others to pay them for permission to use it.
And if industry give ownership to land what are the limits of this ownership?
If a man may acquire the ownership of several square miles of land by
grazing sheep on it, does this give to him and his heirs the ownership
of the same land when it is found to contain rich mines, or when by the
growth of population and the progress of society it is needed for farming,
for gardening, for the close occupation of a great city? Is it on the
rights given by the industry of those who first used it for grazing cows
or growing potatoes that you would found the title to the land now covered
by the city of New York and having a value of thousands of millions of
dollars?
But your contention is not valid. Industry expended on land gives ownership
in the fruits of that industry, but not in the land itself, just as industry
expended on the ocean would give a right of ownership to the fish taken
by it, but not a right of ownership in the ocean. Nor yet is it true
that private ownership of land is necessary to secure the fruits of labor
on land; nor does the improvement of land create benefits indistinguishable
and inseparable from the land itself. That secure possession is necessary
to the use and improvement of land I have already explained, but that
ownership is not necessary is shown by the fact that in all civilized
countries land owned by one person is cultivated and improved by other
persons. Most of the cultivated land in the British Islands, as in Italy
and other countries, is cultivated not by owners but by tenants. And
so the costliest buildings are erected by those who are not owners of
the land, but who have from the owner a mere right of possession for
a time on condition of certain payments. Nearly the whole of London has
been built in this way, and in New York, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco,
Sydney and Melbourne, as well as in continental cities, the owners of
many of the largest edifices will be found to be different persons from
the owners of the ground. So far from the value of improvements being
inseparable from the value of land, it is in individual transactions
constantly separated. For instance, one-half of the land on which the
immense Grand Pacific Hotel in Chicago stands was recently separately
sold, and in Ceylon it is a not infrequent occurrence for one person
to own a fruit-tree and another to own the ground in which it is implanted.
There is, indeed, no improvement of land, whether it be clearing, plowing,
manuring, cultivating, the digging of cellars, the opening of wells or
the building of houses, that so long as its usefulness continues does
not have a value clearly distinguishable from the value of the land.
For land having such improvements will always sell or rent for more than
similar land without them.
If, therefore, the state levy a tax equal to what the land irrespective
of improvement would bring, it will take the benefits of mere ownership,
but will leave the full benefits of use and improvement, which the prevailing
system does not do. And since the holder, who would still in form continue
to be the owner, could at any time give or sell both possession and improvements,
subject to future assessment by the state on the value of the land alone,
he will be perfectly free to retain or dispose of the full amount of
property that the exertion of his labor or the investment of his capital
has attached to or stored up in the land.
Thus, what we propose would secure, as it is impossible in any other
way to secure, what you properly say is just and right — “that
the results of labor should belong to him who has labored.” But
private property in land — to allow the holder without adequate
payment to the state to take for himself the benefit of the value that
attaches to land with social growth and improvement — does take
the results of labor from him who has labored, does turn over the fruits
of one man’s labor to be enjoyed by another. For labor, as the
active factor, is the producer of all wealth. Mere ownership produces
nothing. A man might own a world, but so sure is the decree that “by
the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread,” that without labor
he could not get a meal or provide himself a garment. Hence, when the
owners of land, by virtue of their ownership and without laboring themselves,
get the products of labor in abundance, these things must come from the
labor of others, must be the fruits of others’ sweat, taken from
those who have a right to them and enjoyed by those who have no right
to them.
The only utility of private ownership of land as distinguished
from possession is the evil utility of giving to the owner products
of labor
he does not earn. For until land will yield to its owner some return
beyond that of the labor and capital he expends on it — that is
to say, until by sale or rental he can without expenditure of labor obtain
from it products of labor, ownership amounts to no more than security
of possession, and has no value. Its importance and value begin only
when, either in the present or prospectively, it will yield a revenue — that
is to say, will enable the owner as owner to obtain products of labor
without exertion on his part, and thus to enjoy the results of others’ labor.
What largely keeps men from realizing the robbery involved in private
property in land is that in the most striking cases the robbery is not
of individuals, but of the community. For, as I have before explained,
it is impossible for rent in the economic sense — that value which
attaches to land by reason of social growth and improvement — to
go to the user. It can go only to the owner or to the community. Thus
those who pay enormous rents for the use of land in such centers as London
or New York are not individually injured. Individually they get a return
for what they pay, and must feel that they have no better right to the
use of such peculiarly advantageous localities without paying for it
than have thousands of others. And so, not thinking or not caring for
the interests of the community, they make no objection to the system.
It recently came to light in New York that a man having no title whatever
had been for years collecting rents on a piece of land that the growth
of the city had made very valuable. Those who paid these rents had never
stopped to ask whether he had any right to them. They felt that they
had no right to land that so many others would like to have, without
paying for it, and did not think of, or did not care for, the rights
of all. ...
7. That the private ownership of land stimulates industry,
increases wealth, and attaches men to the soil and to their country. (51.)
The idea, as expressed by Arthur Young, that “the magic of property
turns barren sands to gold” springs from the confusion
of ownership with possession, of which I have before spoken, that attributes to private
property in land what is due to security of the products of labor. It
is needless for me again to point out that the change we propose, the
taxation for public uses of land values, or economic rent, and the abolition
of other taxes, would give to the user of land far greater security for
the fruits of his labor than the present system and far greater permanence
of possession. Nor is it necessary further to show how it would give
homes to those who are now homeless and bind men to their country. For
under it every one who wanted a piece of land for a home or for productive
use could get it without purchase price and hold it even without tax,
since the tax we propose would not fall on all land, nor even on all
land in use, but only on land better than the poorest land in use, and
is in reality not a tax at all, but merely a return to the state for
the use of a valuable privilege. And even those who from circumstances
or occupation did not wish to make permanent use of land would still
have an equal interest with all others in the land of their country and
in the general prosperity.
But I should like your Holiness to consider how utterly unnatural is
the condition of the masses in the richest and most progressive of Christian
countries; how large bodies of them live in habitations in which a rich
man would not ask his dog to dwell; how the great majority have no homes
from which they are not liable on the slightest misfortune to be evicted;
how numbers have no homes at all, but must seek what shelter chance or
charity offers. I should like to ask your Holiness to consider how the
great majority of men in such countries have no interest whatever in
what they are taught to call their native land, for which they are told
that on occasions it is their duty to fight or to die. What right, for
instance, have the majority of your countrymen in the land of their birth?
Can they live in Italy outside of a prison or a poorhouse except as they
buy the privilege from some of the exclusive owners of Italy? Cannot
an Englishman, an American, an Arab or a Japanese do as much? May not
what was said centuries ago by Tiberius Gracchus be said today: “Men
of Rome! you are called the lords of the world, yet have no right to
a square foot of its soil! The wild beasts have their dens, but the soldiers
of Italy have only water and air!”
What is true of Italy is true of the civilized world — is becoming
increasingly true. It is the inevitable effect as civilization progresses
of private property in land. ... read
the whole letter
Henry George: The Wages
of Labor
To attach to things created by
God the same right of private
ownership that justly attaches to things produced by labor is to
impair and deny the true rights of property. For a man who out of the
proceeds of his labor is obliged to pay another man far the use of
ocean or air or sunshine or soil – all of which are involved in the
single term “land” – is in this deprived of his rightful property; and
thus robbed.
While the right
of ownership that justly attaches to things
produced by labor cannot attach to land, there may attach to land a
right of possession.
God has not granted the earth to
mankind in general in the
sense that all without distinction can deal with it as they please; and
regulations necessary far its best use may be fixed by human laws. But
such regulations must conform to the moral law – must secure to all
equal participation in the advantages of God’s general bounty.
The principle is the same as where
a father leaves property
equally to a number of children. Some of the things thus left may be
incapable of common use or of specific division. Such things may
properly be assigned to some of the children, but only under condition
that the equality of benefit among them all be preserved.
...
This
right of private possession in things created by God is,
however, very different from the right of private ownership in things
produced by labor. The one is limited, the other unlimited, save in
cases when the dictate of self-preservation may terminate all other
rights. The purpose of the one, the exclusive possession of land, is
merely to secure the other, the exclusive ownership of the products of
labor; and it can never rightfully be carried so far as to impair or
deny this. While anyone may hold exclusive possession of land
so far as
it does not interfere with the equal rights of others, he can
rightfully hold it no further. ...
We propose leaving land in the
private possession of
individuals – with full liberty on their part to transfer or bequeath
it – simply to take for public uses the annual value of the land
itself, irrespective of the use made of it or the improvements on it.
And, since this would provide amply for the need of Public Revenue, we
would accompany this collection of land values with the repeal of all
taxes now levied on the products and processes of industry – which
taxes, since they take from the earnings of labor, we hold to be
infringements of the right of property.
This we propose, not as a cunning
device of human ingenuity,
but as a conforming of human regulations to the will of God! ... read the whole article
Henry George: This
World is the Creation of God (1891) -- Appendix to The Condition of Labor: An Open Letter to
Pope
Leo XIII
...While the right of ownership that justly attaches to things
produced by labor cannot attach to land, there may attach to land a
right of possession.
This right of private possession in things created by God is
however very different from the right of private ownership in things
produced by labor. The one is limited, the other unlimited, save in
cases when the dictate of self-preservation terminates all other
rights. The purpose of the one, the exclusive possession of land, is
merely to secure the other, the exclusive ownership of the products
of labor; and it can never rightfully be carried so far as to impair
or deny this. While any one may hold exclusive possession of land so
far as it does not interfere with the equal rights of others, he can
rightfully hold it no further.
To combine the advantages of private possession with the
justice
of common ownership it is only necessarily therefore to take for
common uses what value attaches to land irrespective of any exertion
of labor on it.
We propose -- leaving land in the private possession of
individuals, with full liberty on their part to give, sell or
bequeath it -- simply to levy on it for public uses a tax that shall
equal the annual value of the land itself, irrespective of the use
made of it or the improvements on it. And since this would provide
amply for the need of public revenues, we would accompany this tax on
land values with the repeal of all taxes new levied on the products
and processes of industry -- which taxes, since they take from the
earnings of labor, we hold to be infringements of the right of
property. ... read
the entire article
Rev. A. C. Auchmuty: Gems from George, a
themed collection of
excerpts from the writings of Henry George (with links to sources)
NATURE acknowledges no ownership or control in man save as the result of
exertion. In no other way can her treasures be drawn forth, her powers directed,
or her forces utilized or controlled. She makes no discriminations among
men, but is to all absolutely impartial. She knows no distinction between
master and slave, king and subject, saint and sinner. All men to her stand
upon an equal footing and have equal rights. She recognizes no claim but
that of labor, and recognizes that without respect to the claimant. If a
pirate spread his sails, the wind will fill them as well as it will fill
those of a peaceful merchantman or missionary bark; if a king and a common
man be thrown overboard, neither can keep his head above the water except
by swimming; birds will not come to be shot by the proprietor of the soil
any quicker than they will come to be shot by the poacher; fish will bite
or will not bite at a hook in utter disregard as to whether it is offered
them by a good little boy who goes to Sunday school, or a bad little boy
who plays truant; grain will grow only as the ground is prepared and the
seed is sown; it is only at the call of labor that ore can be raised from
the mine; the sun shines and the rain falls alike upon just and unjust. The
laws of nature are the decrees of the Creator. There is written in them no
recognition of any right save that of labor; and in them is written broadly
and clearly the equal right of all men to the use and enjoyment of nature;
to apply to her by their exertions, and to receive and possess her reward.
Hence, as nature gives only to labor, the exertion of labor in production
is the only title to exclusive possession. — Progress & Poverty — Book
VII, Chapter 1, Justice of the Remedy: Injustice of private property in land
PRIVATE property is not of one species, and moral sanction can no more be
asserted universally of it than of marriage. That proper marriage conforms
to the law of God does not justify the polygamic or polyandric or incestuous
marriages that are in some countries permitted by the civil law. And as there
may be immoral marriage, so may there be immoral private property. — The
Condition of Labor, an Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII
THAT any species of property is permitted by the State, does not of itself
give it moral sanction. The State has often made things property that are not
justly property but involve violence and robbery. — The
Condition of Labor, an Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII
TO attach to things created by God the same right of private ownership that
justly attaches to things produced by labor, is to impair and deny the true
rights of property. For a man, who out of the proceeds of his labor is obliged
to pay another man for the use of ocean or air or sunshine or soil, all of
which are to men involved in the single term land, is in this deprived of his
rightful property, and thus robbed. — The
Condition of Labor, an Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII
HOW then is it that we are called deniers of the right of property? It is for
the same reason that caused nine-tenths of the good people in the United
States, north as well as south, to regard abolitionists as deniers of the right
of property; the same reason that made even John Wesley look on a smuggler
as a kind of robber, and on a custom-house seizer of other men's goods as a
defender of law and order. Where violations of the right of property
have been long sanctioned by custom and law, it is inevitable that those
who really assert the right of property will at first be thought to deny it. For
under such circumstances the idea of property becomes confused, and that is
thought to be property which is in reality a violation of property. — A
Perplexed Philosopher (The
Right Of Property And The Right Of Taxation)
LANDLORDS must elect to try their case either by human law or by moral law. If
they say that land is rightly property because made so by human law, they cannot
charge those who would change that law with advocating robbery. But if
they charge that such change in human law would be robbery, then they must
show that land is rightfully property irrespective of human law. — The
Reduction to Iniquity (a reply to the Duke of Argyll), The Nineteenth
Century, July, 1884 ... go to "Gems
from George"
Louis Post: Outlines of Louis F. Post's
Lectures, with Illustrative Notes and Charts (1894) — Appendix:
FAQ
Q32. Is not ownership of land necessary to induce its improvement? Does
not history show that private ownership is a step in advance of common
ownership?
A. No. Private use was doubtless a step in advance of common use. And because
private use seems to us to have been brought about under the institution of private
ownership, private ownership appears to the superficial to have been the real
advance. But a little observation and reflection will remove that impression.
Private ownership of land is not necessary to its private use. And so far from
inducing improvement, private ownership retards it. When a man owns land he may
accumulate wealth by doing nothing with the land, simply allowing the community
to increase its value while he pays a merely nominal tax, upon the plea that
he gets no income from the property. But when the possessor has to pay the value
of his land every year, as he would have to under the single tax, and as ground
renters do now, he must improve his holding in order to profit by it. Private
possession of land, without profit except from use, promotes improvement; private
ownership, with profit regardless of use, retards improvement. Every city in
the world, in its vacant lots, offers proof of the statement. It is the lots
that are owned, and not those that are held upon ground-lease, that remain vacant.
Q53. Is it true that men are equally entitled to land? Are they not
entitled to it in proportion to their use of it?
A. Yes, they are entitled to it in proportion to their use of it and it is this
title that the single tax would secure. It would allow every one to possess as
much land as he wished, upon the sole condition that if it has a value he shall
account to the community for that value and for nothing else; all that he produces
from the land above its value being absolutely his, free even from taxation.
The single tax is the method best adapted to our circumstances, and to orderly
conditions, for limiting possession of land to its use. By making it unprofitable
to hold land except for use, or to hold more than can be used to advantage, it
constitutes every man his own judge of the amount and the character of the land
that he can use. ... read the book
Charles B. Fillebrown: A Catechism
of Natural Taxation, from Principles of
Natural Taxation (1917)
Q13. What is meant by the right of property?
A. As to the grain a man raises, or the house that he builds, it means ownership
full and complete. As to land, it means legal title, tenure, "estate in
land," perpetual right of exclusive possession, a right not absolute,
but superior to that of any other man.
Q14. What is meant by the right of possession?
A. As to land, if permanent and exclusive, as on perpetual lease, it means
the right to "buy and sell, bequeath and devise," to "give,
grant, bargain, sell, and convey" together with the rights and privileges
thereto pertaining, in short, the same definition for possession that the
law applies to property.
... read the whole article
Fred Foldvary: A
Geoist Robinson Crusoe Story
Once upon a time, Robinson G.
Crusoe was the only survivor of a ship
that sunk. He floated on a piece of wood to an unpopulated island.
Robinson was an absolute geoist. He believed with his mind, heart, and
soul that everyone should have an equal share of land rent.
Since he was the only person on
this island, it was all his. He
surveyed the island and found that the only crop available for
cultivation was alfalfa sprouts. The land was divided into 5 grades
that could grow 8, 6, 4, 2, and zero bushels of alfalfa sprouts per
month. There was one acre each for 8, 6, and 4, and 100 acres of
2-bushel land. For 8 hours per day of labor, he could work 4 acres. So
he could grow, per month, 8+6+4+2 = 20 bushels of alfalfa sprouts, much
more than enough to feed on.
One day another survivor of a sunken ship floated to the island. His
name was Friday George. Friday was a boring talker and kept chattering
about trivialities, which greatly irritated Robinson. "I possess the
whole island. You may only have this rocky area," said Robinson. ...
Robinson realized that it did
not matter which lands he possessed. He
could possess better land, but so long as the rent is split equally, if
the wage rate is equal, their income will not be affected. Lawyers say
that possession is nine tenths of the law, but the law of rent says,
possession does not matter.
If the rent is split equally, those who possess land and want to
maximize their income will possess only that amount that maximizes
income for all. If they possess too much land, they would drive wages
down and rents up, leaving less for the possessors. So it does not
matter who owns what land, if the rent is equally split. ... Read the whole piece
Nic Tideman: Private Possession
as an Alternative to Rental and Private Ownership for Agricultural Land
One of the reasons that the debate is so fierce between the advocates of rental
and the advocates of private ownership of agricultural land is that each position
has important strengths as well as important weaknesses. This paper argues
that there is a third possibility between rental and private ownership that
retains the strengths of both while avoiding the weaknesses of both. The third
possibility is private possession of land. ...
Private possession of land is a form of land privatization that combines the
attractive features of rental and private ownership without their disadvantages.
The private possessors of land are entitled to possess and use as much land
as they wish for as long as they wish and to transfer it to whomever they wish
on whatever terms are mutually agreed. This provides incentives for efficient
improvements to land. As a condition for continuing use of land, the private
possessors are required to pay its assessed rental value in an unimproved condition
to the local government. This keeps the price of titles of possession down
to amounts approximating the sale value of improvements, eliminates the profit
from land speculation, and provides a source of public revenue. The public
collection of the rental value of land gives expression to the idea that land
is the common heritage of all generations. The rental value of land would be
determined by assessors, who would follow rental agreements and relate the
value of each parcel to agreed rental prices of near-by, similar land, adjusted
for the contribution of improvements to rental value. Before an effort is made
to measure the rental value of agricultural land, there should be agricultural
reforms to eliminate all restriction on what farmers grow, who they sell it
to, or what prices they receive. And food should not be imported when it is
available domestically at a lower price.
Payments for the use of land would be classified not as taxes, but rather
as compensation for the use of common resources. Therefore these payments would
not be affected by the law specifying that farmers are not required to pay
taxes for five years. There could, however, be an exemption for a modest amount
of rental value of land. read
the whole article
James Kiefer: James Huntington and
the ideas of Henry George
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).
This procedure would have the effect of making the sale price of a piece
of land, not including the price of buildings and other improvements on it,
practically zero. The cost of being a landholder would be, not the original
sale price, but the tax, equivalent to rent. A man who chose to hold his "fair
share," or 1/Nth of all the land, would pay a land tax about equal to
his dividend check, and so would break even. By 1/Nth of the land is meant
land with a value equal to 1/Nth of the value of all the land in the country.
Naturally, an acre in the business district of a great city would be worth
as much as many square miles in the open country. Some would prefer to hold
more than one N'th of the land and pay for the privilege. Some would prefer
to hold less land, or no land at all, and get a small annual check representing
the dividend on their inheritance from their father Adam.
Note that, at least for the able-bodied, this solves the problem of poverty
at a stroke. If the total land and total labor of the world are enough to
feed and clothe the existing population, then 1/Nth of the land and 1/Nth
of the labor are enough to feed and clothe 1/Nth of the population. A family
of 4 occupying 4/Nths of the land (which is what their dividend checks will
enable them to pay the tax on) will find that their labor applied to that
land is enough to enable them to feed and clothe themselves. Of course, they
may prefer to apply their labor elsewhere more profitably, but the situation
from which we start is one in which everyone has his own plot of ground from
which to wrest a living by the strength of his own back, and any deviation
from this is the result of voluntary exchanges agreed to by the parties directly
involved, who judge themselves to be better off as the result of the exchanges.
Some readers may think this a very radical proposal. In fact, it is extremely
conservative, in the sense of being in agreement with historic ideas about
land ownership as opposed to ownership of, say, tools or vehicles or gold
or domestic animals or other movables. The laws of English-speaking countries
uniformly distinguish between real property (land) and personal property
(everything else). In this context, "real" is not the opposite
of "imaginary." It is a form of the word "royal," and
means that the ultimate owner of the land is the king, as symbol of the people.
Note that English-derived law does not recognize "landowners." The
term is "landholders." The concept of eminent domain is that the
landholder may be forced to surrender his landholdings to the government
for a public purpose. Historically, eminent domain does not apply to property
other than land, although complications arise when there are buildings on
the land that is being seized.
I will mention in passing that the proposals of Henry George have attracted
support from persons as diverse as Felix Morley, Aldous
Huxley, Woodrow Wilson, Helen Keller, Winston
Churchill, Leo Tolstoy, William
F Buckley Jr, and Sun Yat-sen. To the Five Nobel Prizes authorized by
Alfred Nobel himself there has been added a sixth, in Economics, and the
Henry George Foundation claims eight of the
Economics Laureates as supporters, in whole or in part, of the proposals
of Henry George (Paul Samuelson, 1970; Milton Friedman,
1976; Herbert A Simon, 1978; James Tobin, 1981; Franco Modigliani, 1985;
James M Buchanan, 1986; Robert M Solow, 1987; William
S Vickrey, 1996).
The immediate concrete proposal favored by most Georgists today is that
cities shall tax land within their boundaries at a higher rate than they
tax buildings and other improvements on the land. (In case anyone is about
to ask, "How can we possibly distinguish between the value of the land
and the value of the buildings on it?" let me assure you that real estate
assessors do it all the time. It is standard practice to make the two assessments
separately, and a parcel of land in the business district of a large city
very often has a different owner from the building on it.) Many cities have
moved to a system of taxing land more heavily than improvements, and most
have been pleased with the results, finding that landholders are more likely
to use their land productively -- to their own benefit and that of the public
-- if their taxes do not automatically go up when they improve their land
by constructing or maintaining buildings on it.
An advantage of this proposal in the eyes of many is that it is a Fabian
proposal, "evolution, not revolution," that it is incremental and
reversible. If a city or other jurisdiction does not like the results of
a two-level tax system, it can repeal the arrangement or reduce the difference
in levels with no great upheaval. It is not like some other proposals of
the form, "Distribute all wealth justly, and make me absolute dictator
of the world so that I can supervise the distribution, and if it doesn't
work, I promise to resign." The problem is that absolute dictators seldom
resign. ... read the whole article
Charles T. Root — Not a Single Tax! (1925)
Briefly defined the land value or economic rent of any piece of ground is
the largest annual amount voluntarily offered for the exclusive use of that
ground, or of an equivalent parcel, independent of improvements thereon. Every
holder or user of land pays economic rent, but he now pays most of it to the
wrong party. The aggregate economic rent of the territory occupied by any political
unit is, as has been stated above, always sufficient, usually more than sufficient,
for the legitimate expenses of the government of that unit. As also stated
above, the economic rent belongs to the community, and not to individual landowners. ...
Under the normal system which this article advocates, the user of land would
pay substantially the same economic rent as now, for the reason that economic
rent is fixed by the payer and not by the payee; but it would be paid to the
credit of the community instead of for the benefit of the individual landowner.
And the economic rent is all the land user would have to pay; no taxes on industry
or personal product and no other forced contribution for governmental purposes. ...
To illustrate simply, let us suppose a state which has never parted with its
natural income but is supported by its own economic rent. A farmer wishes to
take up a tract of government land in this state and offers an economic
rent of fifty cents per year per acre in its raw condition. The government
(i.e., the community) accepts this rent, subject to re-adjustment every five
years. The farmer then gets his deed without other cost than that of drawing
and recording the instrument,
or a nominal price of, say, one dollar an acre. ...
... Furthermore, he has built on these parcels a barn and two storehouses.
The method of computing the proper selling price under such circumstances
would have to be the result of experience, but that price would certainly include
the present value of the improvements and probably some lump sum besides, as
compensation for loss of farming opportunity. But just as certainly it would
not include, (as it would do under our present conditions), the increased location
value which the town itself has created by its own growth and public works,
and which in all justice belongs to the town or community and not to the individual.
...
Let us roughly restate the proposition: All members of the community having
a joint right to the income which the social advantages of the land will command,
they are all partners in this income.
Therefore, when one of their number wishes to take for his private use a parcel
of this land, he should buy out his partners, i.e., the rest of the community,
by paying regularly into the common treasury the economic rent of that parcel,
instead of paying, as at present, the purchase price, i.e., the right to collect
the economic rent, in a lump, to some other individual who has no more original
right to it than himself.
But before this time the reader, unless he has given previous attention
to the subject, is full of objections to the above doctrine: "How about the
law?" he is asking. "Hasn't a man the right to buy a piece of land
as cheaply as he can, to do what he pleases with it, and hold on to it till
he gets ready to sell?" The answer is that at present he certainly
has this statutory right, which has been so long and so universally recognized
that most people suppose it to be not only a legal, but a real or equitable
right. A shrewd man, foreseeing the direction of growth of population in
a
city, for example, can buy a well-located block at a moderate figure from
some less far-seeing owner, can let it grow up to weeds, fence it off against
all
comers and give it no further attention except to pay the very small tax
usually imposed upon vacant land.
Meantime the increasing community builds up all around it with homes, banks,
stores, churches, schools, paving and lighting the streets, giving police and
fire protection, etc., and at last comes to need this block so urgently that
the owner is fairly begged to sell it, at three or ten or fifty times what
it cost him. Quite often the purchaser at this enormous advance is the very
community which has through its presence and the expenditure of its taxes created
practically the whole value of the land in question!
It was said above that an individual has a statutory right to pursue this
very common course. That was an error. The statement should have been that
he has a statutory wrong; for no disinterested person can follow the course
of land speculation as almost universally practiced, without feeling its rank
injustice.
How did so evident a wrong become so firmly established? ... read the whole article
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