SOME POINTS ON THE LAND QUESTION. 511 



It is no doubt true that he did not anticipate any such result, but is it 

 not a logical consequence of a plan for seizing upon the rental value 

 of land ? 



" But," say our land theorists, " land in favorable situations, and 

 specially in or near great cities, brings enormous prices, not because 

 of labor given to the land or of improvements built upon it, but for 

 the reason that its situation makes it in demand and competition 

 brings up the price. This land increased in value because of enter- 

 prises initiated often by persons not owners of the land, being an in- 

 crease of value not due to the owner of the land, not because of any- 

 thing he has planned or brought about, not as the result of his labor, 

 skill, sagacity, or enterprise, but because of other people's labor, skill, 

 and enterprise, and which becomes a tax that the community, as a 

 whole, pays to the owner of the ground. Assuredly this is unjust. 

 Why should men be allowed to grow enormously rich by lying still 

 and simply retaining possession of their land ? " 



This is all true. I have spoken of value being due to labor or con- 

 ditions, and here we have value that arises from demand, which is one 

 form of conditions, just as the value of innumerable other things arises 

 from demand. At first sight the position of the land theorists appears 

 here to be very plausible ; but there is nothing new in it. John Stuart 

 Mill dwelt on the apparent injustice of what he calls unearned incre- 

 ment ; but Mill saw that the appropriation by the state of this incre- 

 ment could not be accomplished without greatly disturbing the whole 

 structure of society. He never even proposed a plan for the appropria- 

 tion of this increase in the future, let alone of violently seizing upon 

 a form of wealth that had grown up under the sanction of the laAvs. 



But, after all, what is the difference between unearned increment 

 in land and unearned increment in other kinds of property ? All natu- 

 ral products are the bounty of Nature just as land is, and, like land, 

 often yield to their possessors an unearned profit. Shall the Govern- 

 ment compel all holders of wool, sugar, grain, iron, cotton, fish, lum- 

 ber, and other products, to surrender through the machinery of a tax 

 all profits that come from an increased demand for these articles? 

 Unearned increment in products being often the result of conspiracies 

 and schemes to the detriment of the public, its confiscation would be 

 much more just than the confiscation of the increased value of land. 

 The owner of land can not by his own personal efforts increase its 

 value except by acts of advantage to the community — by building 

 railroads, by erecting desirable buildings, by fostering industries ; 

 whereas the owner of products can not by his own personal efforts in- 

 crease their value except by producing a " corner," by making them 

 scarce, and thereby imposing a tax on consumers. Our theorists are 

 really at war with a comparatively innocent form of unearned incre- 

 ment, but shut their eyes to a guilty form of it. 



Unearned increment is commonly a direct tax upon society and un- 



