PROPERTY BY COMMON CONSENT
The desire that the government shall enlarge its functions so
as to prevent large accumulations, has led to the verge of
confiscation of property. Several proposed methods of partial
or total confiscation are discussed.
Originally no one held property by common consent, and in the very
early history of the race I suppose no one gave a thought to what we
now call “property rights.” Even now savages seldom claim ownership to
anything beyond a dog, weapons of the chase, possibly a horse or a
canoe. Gradually the divinely implanted desire for ownership,
sovereignty, independence, led the more advanced to assert exclusive
rights, but still they held little if anything by common consent. Each
held what he could by force. Under these conditions civilization had
its birth.
As the race advanced and began to feel the throb of God-like impulses,
and to live in harmony with divine law, consent to proprietorship
developed. For several centuries, in all civilized countries, with here
and there a relapse into barbarism like the French Revolution of the
18th century, and the Russian Revolution of the 20th century, property
rights and some measure of personal liberty have gone hand in hand and
have been quite generally recognized and respected.
CONSENT WITHDRAWN
For the first time in the history of an English speaking people consent
to personal ownership is being gradually withdrawn. Unless you have
studied popular audiences, analyzed current magazine articles and
scrutinized modern legislation, probably you have little conception of
the proportion, even among the respectable and high minded, who are
committed to some degree of confiscation.
At a joint debate on single tax under the auspices of an organization
like many styled “Academy of Political Science” or “Political Science
Club” or “Science of Government League,” which in this instance was an
adjunct of one of our very large universities, I called for a direct
expression from the audience upon the clear-cut proposition of
confiscation of all private property. Two-thirds of the audience
promptly responded in its favor. That audience was composed of
“high-brows.” They were men and women who read magazines, attended
lectures, belonged to “uplift” associations and indulged in mental
processes which they thought was thinking. I had had similar
experiences in joint debates on socialism, but had never before struck
a bunch of incipient anarchists of such apparent respectability.
Some years ago I had the privilege of addressing an association of
Socialist Clubs at Cooper Union. While I have addressed many better
read audiences I have never seen one that had read more. Many of them
did little else but read. In addition they were a most sincere and good
intentioned body of men and women. There are, as every one knows who
has come in contact with them, somewhat more than fifty-seven varieties
of socialists, every one of which was well represented that evening.
They were courteous, they were respectful, they listened with manifest
interest; but it was easily discernible that they considered our
civilization wrong and harmful in the extreme. One could see it, feel
and taste it. The very atmosphere conveyed to every sense the
unmistakable evidence that that great body of men and women thoroughly
believed that what they termed “Capitalism” had its heel upon their
necks. They were not rebellious, but it was evident they did not intend
anyone to be misled into supposing that they were unconscious of their
conditions, or that they intended to acquiesce longer than necessary.
In the campaign of 1918 the “single-taxers” of California made their
third and great attempt to confiscate land values in that beautiful
state. The issue of July 20th of “The Great Adventure,” an official
organ of the single-tax propaganda, printed upon its front page in
heavy double leaded type this announcement: “_Single tax will put these
big land values into the public treasury and leave the Ground Hogs
nothing to rent but the actual value of their buildings._”
The January, 1918, number of “Everyman,” another of their official
organs, contained a well-considered article lauding conditions in
Russia, and promising the same for California. I quote briefly: “The
people of Russia, who only yesterday were semi-starving slaves to a
tinsel aristocracy, are now for the first time living upon their own
lands, in their own homes, and working in their own fields and
factories. They have dispossessed landlords and profiteers; and all who
work have plenty. People do not starve where there is none to take the
food out of their mouths. Famine is a result of human exploitation.
When the people of any country go hungry it is because they are denied
access to natural resources. The people of Russia have taken their
natural resources, and also their industries and they will not go
hungry.... Out of darkest Russia has come the great light of actual
freedom; and there is every reason to hope she will soon have the
weakest government in the world, which means, of course, the strongest,
bravest, truest and most united people.... That is what we are striving
to do in California, but we won’t stop with the land. We will only
begin there. We could not stop there; the tide is too strong. It will
bear us on into the new world of economic friendship.”
The same issue of “Everyman” gave a word picture, for the truth of
which it vouched, of what it termed “Zapataland”—90,000 square miles
in Mexico—where it claimed confiscation had wrought its legitimate
and beneficial results. It claimed the same conditions would be
accomplished in California through the adoption of the single tax
amendment to the Constitution as had been wrought in Mexico with the
musket. It says: “In Zapataland they have no need for money. Is it food
you want? Go to the market and help yourself. Do you need shoes or a
hat? Go and take what you need! Have you a fancy for jewelry? Go make
your selection.... In some of the centers the women of Zapataland
clamored for finger rings and bracelets. The elders consulted. They
melted down some of the church ornaments, and in a few months baskets
full of the envious shining trinkets were in all the Plaza shops. Help
yourself.... Labor is plentiful. Everybody wants to work at least a few
hours a day—they insist upon it. ‘Give me that shovel! You have been
digging there for a couple of hours or more. Let me dig awhile.’ ‘Here,
you, stop straining yourself. Go and rest. I am stronger than you.’...
In Mexico, the propaganda was carried on with ‘30-30’s’. The Zapata
army went from valley to valley, from village to village, and
dispossessed the owners.”
Such stuff is well calculated to deceive almost anyone except those who
have seen a Mexican. For three successive campaigns California was
flooded with that class of literature, its boasted purpose being
confiscation. The organization back of the propaganda, with ample
endowment, purposes to use California as an object lesson and to extend
the principle throughout the nation.
For the benefit of any who thus far have not appreciated the gravity of
this most plausible attack upon property rights, and therefore have not
studied the question, I make the following brief statement of the case
as it appeals to a very large number.
Henry George, the great apostle of single tax, was a very able man. I
do not say he was a very wise man. Great intellects frequently lead to
great errors.
Every advocate of single tax legislation has been a faithful disciple
of Henry George. No one has added a new argument, stated an old
argument with greater force, or reached a different conclusion. None of
his followers has ever apologized for anything Henry George ever said,
or refused to stand or fall with the great originator of the scheme.
Therefore, to quote Henry George is to quote the best authority, and
all authority.
I propose, therefore, to make a few extracts from Henry
George’s standard work on the subject—the great text book of
single-taxers—“Progress and Poverty.”
He begins and ends his argument with the proposition that God made the
land, the sea, and the air, for his children collectively, and has
never granted the exclusive right to any part thereof to king or
subject. All pretended grants and conveyances, therefore, have been
fictitious. Relying upon this argument, he holds that all natural
resources still belong to the people collectively, and confiscation in
the interest of all is justified.
On page 401 of “Progress and Poverty,” he says: “But a question of
method remains. How shall we do it? We should satisfy the law of
justice. We should meet all economic requirements by at one stroke
abolishing all private titles, declaring all lands public property,
and letting it out to the highest bidder in lots to suit.”
On page 403 he says: “I do not propose either to purchase, or to
confiscate property in land. The first would be unjust; the second
needless. Let the individuals who now hold it still retain, if they
want to, possession of what they are pleased to call their land; let
them continue to call it their land; let them buy, and sell, and
bequeath and devise it. We may safely leave them the shell, if we
take the kernel. It is not necessary to confiscate land; it is only
necessary to confiscate rent.”
Again, on the same page, he says: “We already take some rent in
taxation. We have only to make some changes in our mode of taxation
to take it all.”
Thus it will be seen that Henry George, with all his intellect, was
mentally dishonest. His heart-beats were sympathetic, but his mind
wobbled. He was able to perceive nothing dishonest when I sold my
acres, or my lot, invested the proceeds in stocks and bonds, and then
by my vote exempted my property from taxation, and placed all the
burdens of government on the purchaser of my land.
He would have seen no injustice in a government of the people
establishing Rural Credit Banks, as has been done, loaning millions,
with mortgages as security, upon lands purchased from the government,
then inducing widows and orphans to buy securities issued against these
mortgages, and finally taxing the value of the real estate away, thus
leaving the widows and orphans to beg their bread from door to door.
The American people are inherently and intuitively honest and just. Do
you think it would be just, after the people, through their Congress
and their president, had granted the homesteader a patent title in fee
simple, now to tax its value away? As Henry George says, the effect is
the same as confiscation. He calls it “taking the kernel and leaving
the shell.”