Is the assumption correct? Do the socially produced land values necessarily belong to the producer, society? Does not the assumption rest upon a misconception of the moral validity of production as a canon of distribution? Let us examine some of the ways in which values are produced. The man who converts leather and other suitable raw materials into a pair of shoes, increases the utility of these materials, and in normal market conditions increases their value. In a certain sense he has created value, and he is universally acknowledged to have a right to this product. Similarly the man who increases the utility and value of land by fertilising, irrigating, or draining it, is conceded the benefit of these improvements by the title of production. But value may be increased by mere restriction of supply, and by mere increase in demand. If a group of men get control of the existing supply of wheat or cotton, they can artificially raise the price, thereby producing value as effectively as the shoemaker or the farmer. If a syndicate of speculators gets possession of all the land of a certain quality in a community, they can likewise increase its value, produce new value. If a few powerful leaders of fashion decide to adopt a certain style of millinery, their action and example will effect an increase in the demand for and the value of that kind of goods. Yet none of these producers of value are regarded as having a moral right to their product. When we turn to what is called the social creation of land values, we find that it takes two forms. It always implies increase of social demand; but the latter may be either purely subjective, reflecting merely the desires and power of the demanders themselves, or it may have an objective basis connected with the land. In the first case it may be due solely to an increase of population. Within the last few years, agricultural land which is no more fertile nor any better situated with regard to markets or other social advantages than it was thirty years ago, has risen in value because its products have risen in value. Its products have become dearer because population, and therefore demand, have grown faster than agricultural production. Merely by increasing its wants the population has produced land values; but it has obviously no more right to them than have the leaders of fashion to the enhanced value which they have given to feminine headgear. On the other hand, the increased demand for land, and the consequent increase in its value, are frequently attributable specifically to changes connected with the land itself. They are changes which affect its utility rather than its scarcity. The farmer who irrigates desert land increases its utility, as it were, _intrinsically_. The community that establishes a city increases the utility of the land therein and thereabout _extrinsically_. New _relations_ are introduced between that land and certain desirable social institutions.