EARNED DECREASE VS. UNEARNED INCREMENT. 177 



THE EARNED DECREASE 

 VS. THE UNEARNED INCREMENT. 



By JOEL BENTON. 



READERS of Henry George's empiric philosophy have been 

 told — and his acolytes peddle out the platitude with much 

 phrasing and infinite iteration — that society is greatly wronged 

 by something which he calls an " unearned increment." This un- 

 earned increment is a thing which all property, personal as well 

 as real (if you except cash in hand and some of its exchange 

 equivalents), is subject to. It may heap itself just as vigorously 

 upon a dozen eggs or a bucket of soap as it does upon a piece of 

 land. The increment arises, too, from some want or movement 

 of society. But this habit which property has doesn't trouble 

 these millennium-makers and poverty-extinguishers. It is only 

 a subject for complaint, in their view, when it touches a piece 

 of land. 



The stock sample of the injustice they inveigh against is the 

 rise in value of a town lot. In fact, you can not get the mind of 

 a Georgeite off from a town lot. He pitches his tent there ; and 

 if, for any reason, he strays briefly away, when you are not talk- 

 ing to him, to the open country, a word of opposition to his whim 

 will send him back flying to that magic foothold. One would 

 suppose, if the fury with which he thrashes the air were really 

 evidence, that nobody ever bought a town lot or a plot near a 

 city who did not at once ride into a fortune by its buoyancy, or 

 else reap a happy sum which, in equity, belongs not to him, but 

 to everybody collectively. But the whole doctrine of Georgeism 

 is a strange perversion of, not only political economy, but of 

 the exact truth of the matter in hand. The history of land-own- 

 ership of all kinds everywhere is as strikingly a history of losses 

 as it is of profits. We see the successes, as we see the ships which 

 float on the ocean, while the unnumbered wrecks in both cases 

 are out of thought and beyond vision. 



At one time in the history of St. Paul, Minn. — to make one 

 instance stand for a multitude — only two or three men could 

 comfortably hold their real-estate purchases. All the rest who 

 had investments were not only glad to give away the hope of in- 

 crement, but were willing to give up all, and often more than 

 they gave to purchase their holdings, to be freed from the debt 

 on them. In fact, a universal bankruptcy and panic prevailed 

 among all who owned land. It is not an uncommon circumstance 

 to find, too, that those who buy city realty, and hold it any length 

 of time, although the increment may seem very large, have paid 



VOL. XXXIII. — 12 



