394 TAXATION PROBLEMS 



politan districts, there would be little change in the burden as 

 between city and country. 



Argument for the Single Tax. For a person who is not a single 

 taxer to state the arguments for the single tax fairly is not an easy 

 task. However, the effort will be made here. Condensed within 

 very narrow limits the argument runs substantially as follows: 



The private appropriation of ground rent is a privilege in fact 

 it is our worst form of special privilege to-day. No man created 

 the earth or gave it value. The Almighty created the land, and 

 society gives it value. Man cannot create new land. The supply 

 is strictly limited. The use of the land is absolutely necessary for 

 the existence of man. Society does not permit any one to mark 

 off a certain area of the ocean, for instance, and require all users 

 thereof to pay a toll for it. Were this permitted, especially useful 

 parts of it, such as the entrances to harbors, would have a barrier 

 thrown across them and their use permitted by the " owners" only 

 to those who would pay a rent for them. The sea belongs to those 

 who use it. Neither does society now permit private individuals 

 to appropriate the use of socialized strips of land, such as streets 

 and highways, and exact toll (rent) from the users thereof. So an 

 individual who uses the land, like an individual who ventures to 

 sea in his fishing schooner, is entitled to a wage on his labor and to 

 interest on his capital, but not to a rent on the land which he did 

 nothing to create. The rent of the land the economic rent (the 

 market value of its use) is due to society, and hence should be 

 appropriated by society. Society should collect this economic 

 rent and call it a tax. For the individual to collect wages and 

 interest is wise and just; for him to collect economic rent is a special 

 privilege and is uneconomic and unjust. In other words, if he 

 farms the land and receives a fair wage for his labor and a fan- 

 interest return on every cent he has invested in machinery, im- 

 provements, drainage, fertilizers, etc., he has received all the 

 income he is entitled to. He who goes beyond this is reaping where 

 he has not sown, and is to that extent a social parasite. 



Speculation in farm lands would be stopped, and these vast 

 non-productive funds now so employed (to the curse of society) 

 would be diverted into industrial channels, in investments in mills 

 and factories, in workshops and tools, in various productive enter- 

 prises calling for the employment of labor and capital (to the 

 enrichment of society). For obviously a man having money to 

 invest would not put it into land and expect to reap a reward by 

 the rise in value of land (as many now do), because this increase, 



