Individual Liberty - Evernote

in the name of sense is there about a tax that makes it natural as distinguished from
artificial? If anything in the world is purely artificial, taxes are. And if they are
collected by force, they are not only artificial, but arbitrary and tyrannical.
Henry George answers a correspondent who asks if under the system of taxing land
values an enemy could not compel him to pay a higher tax on his land simply by
making him an offer for the land in excess of the existing basis of taxation, by saying
that no offers will change the basis of taxation unless they are made in good faith and
for other than sentimental motives. It seems, then, that the tax assessors are to be
inquisitors as well, armed with power to subject men to examination of their motives
for desiring to effect any given transaction in land. What glorious days those will be
for "boodlers"! What golden opportunities for fraud, favoritism, bribery, and
corruption! And yet Mr. George will have it that he intends to reduce the power of
government.
The idiocy of the arguments employed by the daily press in discussing the labor
question cannot well be exaggerated, but nevertheless it sometimes makes a point on
Henry George which that gentleman cannot meet. For instance, the New York World
lately pointed out that unearned increment attaches not only to land, but to almost
every product of labor. "Newspapers," it said, "are made valuable properties by the
increase of population." Mr. George seems to think this ridiculous, and inquires
confidently whether the World's success is due to increase of population or to
Pulitzer's business management. As if one cause excluded the other! Does Mr. George
believe, then, that Pulitzer's business management could have secured a million
readers of the World if there had been no people in New York? Of course not. Then, to
follow his own logic, Mr. George ought to discriminate in this case, as in the case of
land, between the owner's improvements and the community's improvements, and tax
the latter out of the owner's hands.
Henry George was recently reminded in these columns that his own logic would
compel him to lay a tax not only on land values, but on all values growing out of
increase of population, and newspaper properties were cited in illustration. A
correspondent of the Standard has made the same criticism, instancing, instead of a
newspaper, "Crusoe's boat, which rose in value when a ship appeared on the horizon."
To this correspondent Mr. George makes answer that, while Crusoe's boat might have
acquired a value when other people came, "because value is a factor of trading, and,
when there is no one to trade with, there can be no value," yet "it by no means follows
that growth of population increases the value of labor products; for a population of
fifty will give as much value to a desirable product as a population of a million." I am
ready to admit this of any article which can be readily produced by any and all who
choose to produce it. But, as Mr. George says, it is not true of land; and it is as
emphatically not true of every article in great demand which can be produced, in
approximately equal quality and with approximately equal expense, by only one or a
few persons. There are many such articles, and one of them is a popular newspaper.
Such articles are of small value where there are few people and of immense value
where there are many. This extra value is unearned increment, and ought to be taxed
out of the individual's hands into those of the community if any unearned increment
ought to be. Come, Mr. George, be honest! Let us see whither your doctrine will lead
us.