Our Equal Right to the Earth

Mary Fels

[An address delivered in San Antonio, Texas, 10 November 1914.
Reprinted from the Single Tax Review, January-February 1915]

Out of land God expected men to make practically all of their livelihood. He intended that every human being should possess some part of the earth, and that by resorting to it, he could earn his living in the manner he saw fit. But history has not borne out God's wishes in the matter. Customs regarding land are really little changed from what they were in the past, and at present the large bulk of land is owned by a few wealthy persons.

The great majority of people who possess no part of the earth have, therefore, only one recourse. They must in some way recover control of what once properly was theirs. The government of a nation, in its capacity as a representative of its great numbers of people, should exercise its authority over the few wealthy persons within its boundaries in such a manner that the vast tracts of land owned by them would practically come again under the control of everybody. This would be accomplished ideally by the establishment of the Single Tax S3rstem.

I do not, of course, advocate that any product achieved by a man's individual efforts should be taxed. The people as a whole have no basic interest in whatever has been accomplished in this way, and accordingly they have no right to expect to share in its profits. Herein lies the absurdity of taxing both land and the things of material value which man has constructed with his own hands. In land, the people have a just hereditary interest, but la the products manufactured by individuals they have none.