Henry George

“ For into the labour market would have entered the greatest of all competitors for the employment of labour, a competitor whose demand cannot be satisfied - the demand of labour itself. The employers of labour would have to bid not merely against other employers, all feeling the stimulus of greater trade, but against the ability of labourers to become their own employers upon the natural opportunities thrown open to them by the tax which prevented monopolization. ”

“ With natural opportunities thus set free to labour, with capital and improvements exempt from tax and exchange released from restrictions, the spectacle of willing men unable to turn their labour into the things they want would become impossible; the recurring paroxysms which paralyse industry would cease; every wheel of production would be set in motion; trade would increase in every direction and wealth augment on every hand. ”

“ The building of a house, a factory, a ship, or a railway, benefits others besides those who get the direct gains.
Well may the community leave to the individual producer all that prompts him to exertion; well may it let the labourer have the full reward of his labour, and the capitalist the full return of his capital. ”

“ I speak not of the farmer who never touches the handles of a plough, but of the working farmer who holds a small farm which he cultivates with the aid of his sons and perhaps some hired help. He would be a great gainer by the substitution of a single tax upon the value of land for all the taxes now imposed on commodities because the taxation of land values rests only on the value of land, which is low in agricultural districts as compared with towns and cities, where it is high. ”

“ For taxes, being levied upon the value of the land alone, would fall with equal incidence upon unimproved as upon improved land.
Government simplified The great wrong that takes wealth from the hands of those who produce, and concentrates it in the hands of those who do not, would be gone. Whatever disparities continued to exist would be those of nature, not the artificial disparities produced by the denial of equal rights. Wealth would not only be enormously increased ”

“ To collect taxes, to prevent and punish evasions, to check and countercheck revenues drawn from so many distinct sources, now make up a large part of the business of government. An immense and complicated network of governmental machinery would thus be dispensed with. The rise of wages, the opening of opportunities for all to make an easy and comfortable living, would at once lessen and would soon eliminate from society the thieves, swindlers and other classes of criminals who spring from the unequal distribution of wealth. ”

“ Effect upon individuals and classes Who can say to what infinite powers the wealth-producing capacity of labour may not be raised by social adjustments that will give to the producers of wealth their fair proportion of its advantages and enjoyments? Every new power engaged in the service of man would improve the condition of all. ”

“ If you have saved while I have wasted, you are mulct while I am exempt.
We punish with a tax the man who covers barren fields with ripening grain; we fine him who puts up machinery and him who drains a swamp. ”

“ Whoever planted an orchard, or sowed a field, or built a house, or erected a manufactory, no matter how costly, would have no more to pay in taxes than if he kept so much land idle. The owner of a vacant city lot would have to pay as much for the privilege of keeping other people off it until he wanted to use it as his neighbour who has a fine house upon his lot. ”

“ Take the case of the mechanic, shopkeeper or professional man who has secured himself a house and plot where he lives and which he contemplates with satisfaction as a place from which his family cannot be ejected in case of his death. Although he will have taxes to pay upon his land, he will be released from taxes upon his house and improvements, upon his furniture and personal property, upon all that he and his family eat, drink and wear, while his earnings will be largely increased by the rise of wages, the constant employment, and the increased briskness of trade. ”

“ Thus there would disappear the premium which, wherever labour is most productive, must now be paid before labour can be exerted. The farmer would not have to pay out half his means, or mortgage his labour for years, in order to obtain land to cultivate. ”

“ It is not possible without too much elaboration to notice all the changes that would be wrought, or would become possible, by a change that would readjust the very foundation of society. Among these is the great simplicity that would become possible in government. ”

“ When it is first proposed to put all taxes upon the value of land and thus to confiscate rent, there will not be wanting appeals to the fears of small farm and homestead owners, who will be told that this is a proposition to rob them of their hard-earned property. ”

“ But great as they thus appear, the advantages of a transference of all public burdens to a tax upon the value of land cannot be fully appreciated until we consider the effect upon the distribution of wealth. ”

“ If a man plant a fruit tree, his gain is that he gathers the fruit in its time and season. But in addition to his gain, there is a gain to the whole community. Others than the owner are benefitted by the increased supply of fruit; the birds that it shelters fly far and wide; the rain that it helps to attract falls not alone on his field ”

“ Mineral land would be thrown open to use as would agricultural land; and in the heart of a city no one could afford to keep land from its most profitable use, or on the outskirts to demand more for it than would be warranted by the use to which it could be put at the time. ”

“ And what would be paid from year to year to the state would be in lieu of all the taxes now levied upon improvements, machinery and stock.
Effect upon the labour market Consider the effect of such a change upon the labour market. Instead of labourers competing with each other for employment, and in their competition cutting down wages to the point of bare subsistence, employers would compete for labourers and wages would rise to the fair earnings of labour. ”