These statements are somewhat inconsistent with each other. If rent is of such a nature, as assumed at the beginning of the argument, that it cannot directly affect all values because it depends upon those values for its existence, a tax levied upon it cannot be distributed but rests wholly upon the landholder. If, on the other hand, a tax on land is distributed among all consumers of its products, there is no economic rent, but the burden rests upon the consumers alone, according to the amount consumed, subjecting this tax to the objection against all indirect taxes that the poor bear the heavier burden. It is evident, too, that such a tax must bear heavily upon the unthrifty. The valuation of farms must be made by an expert judge of what farms similarly situated ought to produce. A farm valued at $500 annual rent might, under thrifty management, produce twice as much as under unthrifty management. The tax, under thrifty management, could be easily paid; under unthrifty management, it would ruin the manager. This certainly does not levy the tax according to ability. It also bears heavily upon the enterprising young farmer whose capital is small, as compared with the long-established farmer with accumulated capital. The man weak in capital would bear as heavy a burden as the strong. Again, it provides no system of taxation in newly settled communities where land has practically no value except from improvements. Unless a fictitious value be given to such land for purposes of taxation, as sometimes happens with reference to non-resident land-holders, no government could be maintained. Finally, since under this system government assumes a control over landed estates, from which it exempts all other forms of property, it tends toward the nationalization of land, which would necessarily destroy the system itself. For if government claims all increment from land production, land ceases to be property and does not pass from owner to owner at a market value: then government fixes arbitrarily the rental of space, and taxation is distributed upon a new principle. If a new principle were not to be assumed, there could hardly be a device conceived more likely to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Farmers, of all men, are best situated to realize the unequal workings of a single land tax system.