Labour policy—false and true : $b A study in economic history and industrial economicsMacassey, Lynden Livingston
History
Labour policy—false and true : $b A study in economic history and industrial economics
Macassey, Lynden Livingston
Industrial policy -- Great Britain; Labor economics -- Great Britain; Labour Party (Great Britain)
All land nationalizers assume that ownership embraces two fundamental
rights. (1) The right to draw a revenue from the use of the land, i.e.
to receive the rent. (2) The right to control the way in which the land
shall be used. They describe these two rights as the “right to rent,” and
the “right of control” respectively. Where land is held in fee-simple the
right to rent and the right of control are usually vested in one and the
same person, namely the owner. Where, however, the relation of landlord
and tenant has been created by a contract of tenancy, the right to rent,
when it exists, is usually vested in the landlord. The right of control
is vested partly in the landlord and partly in the tenant. The landlord’s
powers, partial or otherwise according to circumstances, of controlling
the uses to which the tenant may put the land, depend upon the contract
of tenancy.
Schemes of land nationalization fall into one of three classes according
to their effect on the right to rent and the right of control. First,
where the whole revenue of the land is ultimately to go to the State,
but possession and the right of control of the land is to remain as it
is under private ownership. There, transference of land revenues to the
State is to be effected by growing national taxation of land values. This
is the scheme of the school of land nationalizers who follow Mr. Henry
George, and are mainly represented by the English League for the Taxation
of Land Values. It is fully explained in Mr. George’s book, _Progress
and Poverty_, and will be called the “George scheme” or “taxing-out
scheme,” Second, where the right of control of the land is to be taken
from private owners and vested in the State by State purchase, but the
owners are to suffer no substantial loss of revenue. They are to receive
Government Bonds of such capital value as will produce an annual interest
equal to the net rent of the land in question. This is the plan of the
Land Nationalization Society, of which the late Dr. Alfred R. Wallace,
F.R.S., O.M., was the Chairman. It will be called the “Nationalization
Society’s scheme” or the “state purchase scheme.” Third, where the
present owners are to be expropriated, and deprived of the right to
rent, and the right of control, and so lose all or a very considerable
portion of their income so far as derived from land. Socialists other
than the State Socialists who subscribe to the programme of the Land
Nationalization Society advocate this policy. Some of them would allow
the owners compensation, but nothing like sufficient to maintain their
present income. For example, the National Guildists would pay trifling
compensation in State Bonds equal in nominal value to the capitalized
value of an annuity for two to three years of the same annual amount as
the net rent. The Syndicalists, on the other hand, would confiscate the
entire private property in land without any compensation whatsoever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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