Schools and Real Estate Taxes

Oscar B. Johannsen

[Reprinted from The Gargoyle, January, 1959]

Mr. Tideman is correct when he points out that anyone occupying a piece of land should pay its economic rent. This, of course, applies not only to schools, but to churches, hospitals, and even to Henry George Schools.

However, we are living in a nation which has little understanding of fundamental principles and in which the burden of taxation is becoming increasingly onerous and our society more socialistic. All who believe in freedom obviously wish as much of human activity to be in the domain of private enterprise as is possible._ Thus having our churches, hospitals, and eleemosynary institutions under the aegis of private enterprise. Under present circumstances to levy property taxes on them would be to cause many of them to close. What would happen then?

The government would take over these functions, and then not only would the service rendered constantly deteriorate but the cost of running them would skyrocket. At least, at the present time, much of the cost is paid partly by the people actually using these activities and partly by private contributions. The government renders aid by not levying property taxes and sometimes, particularly in the case of hospitals, by actual donations from the State. In order to maintain a doctrinaire position. Mr. Tideman would sit idly by to let these organizations be taxed out of existence, only to be replaced at much greater cost by the government.

And, of course, in approving the property tax, Mr. Tideman is not even maintaining the position of a purist, for he knows this means taxing the improvements on the land, i.e., the schools's and such taxation he knows is wrong. He does this in order to collect the small proportion of economic rent which would be collected. And to do that he would jeopardize the existence of private schools.

Mr. Tideman makes the rather surprising error of assuming that it is a function of the government to educate, which is why he is so exorcised over the loss of the "natural revenue" for 'public schools. Actually the economic rent is not any "natural revenue" for public schools any more than it is for public housing, public medicine, or public enterprise. Possibly the word "public" has confused him. If, he would recognize that public schools are socialized schools, as public housing is socialized housing.

This writer does not know what Mr. Tideman's point is with regard to the Catholic Church. All this writer did was to point it out as an instance to emphasize his point as was stated, "that the right to teach does not come from the government but from God Himself" i.e., education is not a governmental function.

It is true that our public schools are better than they would be by State or Federal bodies. However, the individual states already have too much control, and it is becoming increasingly apparent that eventually local control will be purely nominal. But, even if this were not true, our public schools would tend, at best, to mediocrity, although probably at a slower pace, for governmental units are incapable of running enterprises efficiently.

If Mr. Tideman wants to convince himself that public schools are superior by and large to private and parochial schools more power to him. However, he might be surprised to learn how many people by trying to get their children into private and parochial schools are expressing their disagreement through action.

As far as Dr. McGlynn and Henry George's views on public schools are concerned, this writer feels they were both wrong. However, the reasons for this lie largely within the realm of the philosophy of education, which requires much more space and time than ought be taken at present.