Unused Democracy

Harry H. Willock

Reprinted from The Bulletin of the National Single Tax League, Vol.3, No.3, March 1919

The war is over. The world is at the beginning of a new epoch. It may be now more truly said than at any time since its first utterance, "Old things pave passed away—all things have become new." Not even during the great Reformation did the thought of the world pass through such a profound change as has occurred during the last fifty-two months. Czars, kaisers, kings have passed away and their places have not been filled and will not be filled. The people will govern. The few kings who remain will be tolerated only as social ornaments and will have no place in the political life of nations.

Britain has shown the world how a king may continue to be tolerated and yet in no way permitted to affect the democratic political life of the people. With all her traditional conservatism Britain is more democratic with her king than we are with our President, and that fact should bring home to every thoughtful American citizen that it is only the substance which matters and not the form. We in America must see to it that we get more of the substance of democracy and not be satisfied with mere form. Political democracy is only a means and not an end, as millions of American workers have discovered by hard experience.

The new faith—industrial democracy—now looked upon with such hope is not even a means and will lead the world into a blind alley. It has no real outcome. Industrial democracy—desirable as it may be as a temporary makeshift—will still leave the source of all wealth in the hands of the world junkers, who will continue the levy of an increasing toll on the wages of capital and labor alike. Just so long as land ownership is undemocratized, the employed and employer alike will be completely in the power of the land owner—the junker of America. Blackstone teaches as a fundamental of the common law that "the holding of title to land (including minerals, forests and waters) and the appropriation of the unearned increment therefrom is not a right inherent in the individual, but a privilege granted by the State or nation," and true democracy demands that no such privilege be granted to any citizen without proper remuneration.

Site value is, practically speaking, the only value which any land can have separate from the improvements which have been added by the labor of man, and this site value can only be given by the community and is represented by the actual rental value or the rental value the land is thought to have by the owner. In other words, a lot worth $100,000 on a city avenue, a farm worth $100 an acre (exclusive of improvements) or a water power worth $1,000,000 only have such values because they will produce a net return of approximately 5 percent on such amounts. If the lot or the farm or the water power was more favorably located the value would be more, if not so favorably located the value would be less, and if located in the most remote districts of the earth their value would almost or entirely disappear.

With these facts before us, who can deny that land has any value except that given by the community and once granting this truth who can deny the equitable right and duty of a truly democratic State to call on the land owner to pay the State the entire rental value of the land owned by him in order to defray the expense of the State and to provide for the proper extension of public activities. Under such conditions the ordinary expense of government, national, State and local, would be more than covered without any form of taxation.

The average man will say, however, "that is all very nice, but why should that interest me? I have a living to make and have nothing to pay taxes on," or "I am a merchant and I include my taxes in the price of the goods I sell. Let the other fellows worry about it." Right there is where the junker wants the "average" man to remain, and so long as he remains there the "average" man—'employee or employer— will continue to be the "goat" and at the same time he will be paying the greatest portion of the taxes and continue to make it impossible even for "industrial democracy" to materially or permanently better his social or living conditions.

Wages are always highest for the employee and profits are always highest for the employer when jobs are plenty for the worker and workers are scarce for the employer. No< one makes any money when jobs are scarce and workers over-abundant. High wages mean enhanced buying power for all the people, which always results in greatly increased demand for goods of all kinds, and every employer knows increased demand always means increased profits even if higher wages are paid at the same time. There is always more profit to the manufacturer or dealer with prices on a high level than when prices are on a low level even if wages are lower.

The whole question therefore of permanent high wages for the employee and permanent large profits for the employer resolves itself into the question of permanently making jobs plenty and men scarce and this can only be done by taxation.

Wages—the price of labor—must fluctuate exactly as labor is plenty or scarce, but we do not always clearly understand the comparatively small percentage between surplus and shortage. If a certain city requires one hundred carloads of potatoes a day to supply the normal demand and if for a period of ten days only ninety-five cars arrive daily potatoes are scarce and prices very high, while if for the same period one hundred and five cars should arrive daily potatoes would be very plentiful and prices very low. There would only, however, be a difference of ten cars of potatoes daily or about ten per cent. between the periods of high and low prices. A difference of ten per cent. in the available labor supply is all the difference between high and low wages for the worker, high and low buying power of the people and high and low profits of the employer.

When we become democratic enough to demand that the State take all the community created rental value of land to pay the expense of the State no one will desire, or could be compelled, to own more land than they can use productively any more than one would now rent an office or a dwelling or a factory and permit it to remain vacant or unused. Not half the area of America and not over two-thirds the area of even our large cities is in use and when all the rental value of land is demanded by the State the great portion of such land must pass from private to public ownership and therefore immediately become a national asset instead of a national liability as it now is. Such land in the public hands would be held for the private ownership of the individual who desired to put it to use, paying the State therefor only the annual rental value but no purchase price. Vacant unused land therefore would be open as it were to homestead for residence and business purposes even in our cities, while thousands of acres would be accessible for agricultural purposes immediately adjacent to all our large centers of population. All taxes on business enterprise would be unnecessary, taxes on homes and farmers greatly reduced and all business activity permanently stimulated.

Under such conditions America could support in plenty, and entirely beyond the shadow of involuntary poverty, a population of a billion people, without any fear of losing the great stabilizer—free land. Thousands of men now in industry would go on the land with their women and children, many of whom are now doing industrial work, thereby lessening the labor pressure and giving better wages to those who remain in industry, and at the same time forming a great reservoir of reserve labor for seasonal occupation, or to fill in during periods of tremendous industrial activity when wages sufficiently attractive could be offered to tempt them away from their own work on the land. Jobs would be permanently plentiful, and men—as long as free land remained—would be permanently scarce with resulting high wages and steady employment for workers and good business with good profits for employers in supplying the increased demands of a people with a much greater buying power than at present.

Such conditions are a very real and practical end which may be attained by a free people, using political democracy as a means to democratize the land—which, together with human labor, is the basis of all wealth. This is single tax. It is not Socialism. It is not Bolshevism. It is not Anarchy. It is not confiscation. It requires no new governmental machinery. It will take nothing from anyone which is now producing them a revenue. The income of no one will be reduced. Wages and legitimate profits will be increased. Profit for the few at the expense of the many will be practically abolished. It will be possible for everyone to have a home who really wants one. There will be less millionaires and fewer poor. Fewer limousines and more Fords. It will abolish the I. W. W., and tramps will become as rare as the "Dodo." We can have it all any time we want it bad enough. We must use our democracy. A constitutional amendment of only about ten lines is necessary— making all taxes unlawful until after the full rental value of all land (including minerals, forests and waters) have been taken for the needs of government (national, State, county and local). The National Single-Tax League is organized to get it. It is your fault if you don't belong. Send along your dollar, or your thousands, and they will be put to work. America without free land is not the America of our fathers.