Single Taxers and Socialists Should Unite
Selim Tideman
[Reprinted from Land and Freedom,
January-February 1931]
Since the excitement of the election is now past, it should be
possible and in order to discuss our proper relation to the Socialists
on the merits of the case, without bias or prejudice.
As to the way matters stand in this country, should the Single Taxers
and the Socialists join forces? Most assuredly they should, and for
good reasons. The goal of both is the same, even if they don't know
that much -as yet. But they will learn as they proceed and get into
contact with reality.
The Socialists want to use Government power to establish and maintain
co-operation in the production and distribution of wealth. The Single
Taxer fights for individual freedom with equality of right in the
land, and looks upon the requirements of co-operation as only
incidental. Neither of them realizes that the Co-operative
Commonwealth is an accomplished fact, brought about, not by any man's
design or planning, but by natural evolution, and that all there is to
do, and must be done, is to adjust the machinery of its organic parts
so as to bring it into orderly functioning.
Look around and open your mind to what you see. Observe that an
up-to-date Nation is now a vast co-operative estate on which every
worker is producing wealth and service, directly and indirectly, for
anybody, for everybody and for the estate as a whole, and taking his
own requirement from the general supply, the free and open market,
into which he delivers the product of his own labor, receiving and
giving money, in one form or another, as receipt for what is given and
taken.
When the land question becomes a fiscal question the money question
becomes part of it. When land monopoly is disposed of, the money
monopoly must go too, if individual freedom with perfect co-operation
is to be attained. On this the Single Taxers and the Socialists will
be in unison.
Public ownership of public utilities is now looming large on the
horizon, prematurely it seems to me, but there it is. On that issue
the Single Taxers and the Socialists will be found in the same camp.
Public utilities exist for public service. Just what constitutes
public service in a co-operative commonwealth? When a man takes charge
and direction of a group of other men's labor, or otherwise serves the
public, does he not become a public servant, rightfully subject to
such rules and regulations as public safety and welfare may require,
especially for those that work under his direction? If an important
industry in private hands refuses to function satisfactorily to the
public, may not the commonwealth take it over to be directed by its
responsible servants. Does not that seem the inevitable course of
economic evolution? Talk about your " right to run the business
to suit yourself ; " Who gave that right in a complex
co-operating society? Liberty is fine in the academy and the
wilderness, and was always the watchword of thieves and freebooters;
but in the practical life of the people, rights and duties take
precedence. Such is nature's Law.
The reason for the confusion of professional economists and the
disagreement between Single Taxers and Socialists appears to be that
the transformation of individualistic production into a co-operative
organic system has come about by a process of natural evolution,
unheralded, without human plan or purpose. Everybody played his part
in it unconsciously, and nobody noticed the essential nature of what
was taking place. But few seem yet aware of it until their attention
is purposely directed to it. Its rapid and luxurious growth is still
in the anarchistic stage, without intelligent and orderly direction to
definite purpose. It is time it be studied, understood and put into
such order as to serve the common welfare. Humanity's fate hangs
thereon.
There are principles to be applied, sincere and earnest work to be
done by both Single Taxers and Socialists. It will be time enough for
them to split when the aims they have in common have been
accomplished.
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