The Policy of Land Value Taxationists
and Single Taxers

Walter R.B. Willcox

[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, July-August, 1933]

In a letter written shortly before his death, John Paul explained at length what he felt to be the political strength and the wisdom of the policy pursued by the Land Value Taxationists and the Single Taxers, sometimes referred to as the "step-by-step" policy. In support of it, he cited Chapter II, Book VIII, of Progress and Poverty, concerning which he said Louis Post once remarked that many followers of Henry George seemed never to grasp its full import.

Lest the writer who for long has regarded this policy as bewildering to great numbers of people, and therefore, ineffectual, should merit inclusion in that group, he reviewed the chapter mentioned with considerable care. As a consequence, he was led to wonder if Post's comment was directed so much to those who share the writer's views, as to Single Taxers themselves.

George had previously reached the conclusion that the cure for the world's economic ills lay in making land common property, that all might share in its value. He here proposed, "as the simple yet sovereign remedy" to bring this about, "to appropriate rent by taxation," and said, "we may put the proposition into practical form by proposing to abolish all taxation save that upon land values." Unless the writer is mistaken, it is this which George explicitly states is to be "the first step upon which the practical struggle must be made" to accomplish the final purpose.

The reason George used the expression "to appropriate rent," meaning thereby only some of the rent, instead of the expression "to appropriate all of the rent," would seem to have arisen from the fact that he knew there still would be rent uncollected, after enough of it had been taken to make possible the doing away with all other taxes. For him to have proclaimed, with a blare of italics, that the one and only remedy for our economic ills was "to appropriate rent by taxation," when, in almost the same paragraph, he reminds us that "we already take some of the rent in taxation," would have been ludicrous. Certainly, there would have been nothing revolutionary in a proposal to appropriate rent by taxation, in a country where this had always been done. What he did proclaim that was revolutionary, was that we must take all of the rent, and that the "first step" towards that end was "to abolish all taxation save that upon land values."

That George did not advocate taking all of the rent at once, was, as he explains, because he thought it wise in contradistinction to Spencer's proposal to make the government the universal landlord and lease land to users, to make use of our present taxation machinery, according to "an axiom of statesmanship, that great changes can best be brought about under old forms," and to tax rent sufficiently only to provide for present governmental revenues, thus making it possible "to abolish all taxation save that upon land values." To collect this much was to be the first step in the practical struggle to get it all.

Other than mention of this as the first step, the only suggestion, or intimation, of the efficacy of a gradual, or step-by-step progress towards the final goal, appears in connection with consideration of this balance of uncollected rent, concerning which he has this to say: "Hence it will not be enough merely to place all taxes upon the value of land. It will be necessary, where rent exceeds the present governmental revenues, commensurately to increase the amount demanded in taxation, and to continue this increase as society progresses and rent advances. "In other words, the first thing to be done is to tax rent to the amount of present governmental revenues, so that all other taxes can be abolished, and thereafter, where and as society progresses and rent advances, gradually to increase collections of rent until all of the rent is taken.

Since, after fifty years of experience of the step-by-step policy, we are witnessing a widespread movement to cut down taxes on land values in some states legislation providing that it be done, or limiting increase above a certain rate, having been enacted, might it not be wise to revise procedure according to what, in the writer's judgment, seems to be a perfectly reasonable interpretation of George's proposal; that is, to make the first step, the taxing of rent to the amount of customary governmental revenues, so that all taxation save that upon land values can be abolished?

This policy would, of necessity, direct attention to the concept of land as common property, and away from the concept of land as private property. It would direct attention away from taxes, which people instinctively regard as arbitrary and unjust, to rent, which, as payment for the use of what other people produce, is never regarded as improper or unfair. What confusion arises from the proposal to raise revenues by a Single Tax on land values, accompanied by the necessary explanation that such a tax is not a tax at all, but rent. As a professor of economics was heard to remark: "What difference does it make what you call it you have to pay it just the same!" What hope of impressing people generally with the fundamental justice of rent collection, when even economists recognize no difference between a rent and a tax?

Is it not reasonable to suppose that George was aware of this prevailing ignorance, when he wrote in this chapter: "When the common right to land is so far appreciated that all taxes are abolished save those which fall upon rent, there is no danger of much more than is necessary to induce them to collect the public revenues being left to individual land holders?" The writer is not unaware that this passage carries a possible implication that appreciation of the idea is to be cultivated, by the gradual shifting taxes from man-made things to land values. But, would it not be more direct and forceful, to teach people the truth about property in land, and the meaning of rent, that, when fully informed, they would be eager to take the "first step" towards making land common property, by abolishing all taxation save that upon land values?

A like implication might be attributed to the passage:

"Now, insomuch as the taxation of rent, or land values, must necessarily be increased just as we abolish other taxes," were it not for the rest of the sentence and the entire context "we may put the proposition into practical form by proposing (in italics) to abolish all taxation save that upon land values."

Henry George was not primarily interested in a fiscal system. He was interested in justice. And it seems to the writer that Land Value Taxationists and Single Taxers, in attempting to follow the step-by-step method of accomplishing the results all his followers have hoped for, have retarded, rather than advanced, the cause of justice. They have had a fair opportunity to demonstrate the efficacy of that method. Now, therefore, when organized effort is being expended in the opposite direction, might it not be wise to give united support to another kind, it may be hoped, a more efficient method, one that will teach people the difference between a rent and a tax, and the true meaning of land as common property? Might it not be wise to acknowledge the futility of continued striving merely to introduce a change in the incidences of taxation, which fifty years of earnest effort has failed to bring forth, and for the future, to devote time and energy to the establishment of justice?