Introduction to the Single Tax

Edna D. Bullock

[Reprinted from the book, Single Tax: Debater's Handbook Series.
Originally published September 1914]

Taxation problems are, at best, rather intricate for the majority of citizens. The consideration of these problems has so long been left to the discussion of the doctors and the schools that the scholars have come to look upon the crude reasoning of the common mind as an intrusion upon their own special field. This seems to be the present attitude of economic scholarship towards the popular mind as expressed in Single Tax propaganda.

Granting that the popular thought on taxation has too often been directed to evasion of taxes, it would still be evidence of unreasonable skepticism as to the intrinsic rightness of human nature, if one could not conclude that no just basis for the distribution of wealth has yet been found, and that the scholars have failed to adapt their erudition to the problems of the "man in the street."

It is very recently, indeed, that political economists have thought it within the proprieties to devote much attention to Single Tax discussions. This explains why so much of the available printed matter on Single Tax has been written by Single Tax propagandists, and so little of the meager literature of opposition by the economists.

Meantime, the question of the adoption of the Single Tax theory as a working basis of taxation has compelled the attention of the average citizen in his capacity of voter in various parts of our own and other countries.

The present status of the taxation problem, therefore, is distinctly controversial. In considering the subject it is but right to examine carefully the literature of propaganda, for it is that literature that is in the hands of one's neighbor who is about to vote on the adoption of the single tax. It may be sadly biased by the enthusiasm of the advocate or the antagonism of the objector - but it is being read. Therefore the compiler has thought it fair to reprint some of this literature.

From a cursory, but comprehensive view of the subject, I suggest to the student or the citizen who is confronted with the necessity of coming to a decision concerning the adoption of a Single Tax program, a careful outlining of present forms of taxation and their underlying principles. Such a study would develop certain axiomatic statements that would clarify the thinking of most of us.

It would be established: -

That some form of taxation is as necessary as it is unavoidable everywhere in the civilized world, except on Crusoe's island. It is not unusual to find unthinking citizens who regard taxes as an especially objectionable form of human oppression, designed by the powerful, and collected chiefly from those least able to pay.

That the promotion of the general welfare is, or should be, the sole object of taxation. At the vanishing point of the general welfare, and the consequent ascendancy of the private welfare of favored individuals, therefore, comes the test of the soundness of any tax.

That the best scheme of taxation is that which falls upon the individuals composing society according to the ability of each to pay, and to participate in the benefits of community expenditures for governmental purposes.

It is by such criteria as these that the general property tax, income tax, inheritance tax, poll tax, internal revenue and all excise taxes, tariffs, franchise taxes, occupational taxes, and the proposed Single Tax should be tested. And much wisdom is required of those who apply the tests skillfully, and with fidelity to the public welfare.