SINGLE TAX 



5391 



SINGLE TAX 



Theory of the Single Tax. The argument 

 developed by George in his book, Progress and 

 Poverty, is that the land belongs by right to 

 all the people, and no generation has the right 

 to alienate permanently any portion of it. In 

 studying economic progress, he arrived at the 

 conclusion that it is marked by increasing ex- 

 tremes of wealth and poverty. This is a result 

 of the tendency of a small part of the com- 

 munity to obtain possession of the land, which 

 is the great natural source of wealth. As long 

 as free land is obtainable, the laborer continues 

 to command a good living wage; but when no 

 such land is obtainable, he is compelled to pay 

 a price for the use of land, and consequently 

 he no longer retains all the wealth he produces 

 by his labor. A considerable portion of it goes 

 to the landlord in the form of rent (which see). 

 Rent, according to the single-tax theory, tends 

 to absorb all values above the minimum wages 

 and interest; this is manifestly unjust and so- 

 cially undesirable. A few square feet of rocky 

 soil on the point of Manhattan Island (New 

 York City) are worth a fortune, and this value 

 is created by the presence, within a small area, 

 of over four million people. It is pressure of 

 population that creates excessive land values; 

 consequently it is to be regarded as a social 

 value, and the community as a whole should 

 share it. 



Since they regard the private ownership of 

 land as wrong, single-taxers do not hesitate to 

 urge a tax sufficient to absorb practically the 

 whole of the landlord's share. In their scheme 

 of taxation, he would be left only a sufficient 

 reward to induce him to collect the rent and 

 pay his tax. In fixing this tax it would be 

 necessary to discriminate between the actual 

 value of the land and that added by improve- 

 ments. This actual value, created by nature 

 and population, is known to economists as pure 

 rent, and the absorption by society of practi- 

 cally all pure rent is the aim of single tax. 

 This rent would be more than sufficient to de- 

 fray the expenses of government, and no other 

 form of property would need to be taxed. Such 

 a scheme of taxation would prevent the hold- 

 ing of vacant land for speculative purposes, 

 since taxes so heavy could not be supported 

 by idle land. Thus land which is now waste 

 could be made to add to the total economic 

 output. According to its adherents, the single 

 tax would have the effect of equalizing oppor- 

 tunity in every sphere and would greatly stimu- 

 late production. It would largely do away with 

 extreme wealth and poverty. 



Objections to the System. Critics of the 

 system have pointed out that property is a 

 social product, the right to hold which is 

 granted for purposes of expediency. It is 

 safeguarded by contracts, guaranteed by the 

 state. Any such violent disturbance of the 

 delicately-adjusted economic and social scheme 

 as confiscation implies would work great hard- 

 ship and injustice on a considerable part of the 

 community. As regards its effect upon indus- 

 try, it has been urged that to vest real owner- 

 ship of the land in the government would be 

 to reduce farmers to the status of tenants and 

 to discourage the tendency to improve the land, 

 which is most certainly stimulated by private 

 ownership. A third criticism is to the effect 

 that revenues derived from land alone would 

 be inelastic and ill adjusted to the actual 

 needs of government. 



Progress of Single Tax Movement. Naturally 

 the single tax can only be the result of a 

 gradual development, step by step. The first 

 step is municipal single tax, which means that 

 the tax on land values is limited by the re- 

 quirements of local government. 



Municipal single tax has been introduced in 

 many parts of the world. Progress and Pov- 

 erty, Henry George's great book, was published 

 in 1879, and in 1890, only eleven years later, 

 the legislature of Queensland, Australia, re- 

 quired its municipalities to exempt all per- 

 sonal property and all real estate improve- 

 ments from taxation. In the next year New 

 Zealand adopted single tax in a modified form 

 by providing a graduated state land tax, and 

 since 1896 about one-half of the local taxing 

 districts have adopted the complete municipal 

 single tax. 



In Canada the single tax has made greatest 

 progress in the West, where it has been adopted 

 by nearly all the larger cities, including Van- 

 couver, Victoria and Edmonton. In 1912 all 

 towns, villages and rural municipalities in Al- 

 berta were required to raise their local reve- 

 nues by taxes on land values. In Saskatche- 

 wan since 1914 a super-tax of $40 has been 

 levied on each 640 acres of uncultivated land. 

 British Columbia in 1892 required municipali- 

 ties to assess improvements on land at not 

 more than fifty per cent of actual value, but 

 many of the municipalities have since gone the 

 whole distance and no longer tax any improve- 

 ments. 



In the United States the single tax has not 

 been as extensively adopted, chiefly because 

 most American cities are not free to change 



