The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10Brann, William Cowper
General
The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
As to whether the Single Tax, in full force, would provide enough
revenue for municipal, county, state and federal governments, we,
Single Taxers, are not greatly concerned. We have our own
opinions on that question and can give better reasons for them
than our opponents can give for theirs. But the question is not
essential to our argument. What we hold to is that until land
values fully taxed prove inadequate for the expenses of
government economically administered, not one cent should be
levied on labor products, no matter in whose possession found.
This, however, belongs to the fiscal side of our reform. Of
infinitely more importance is the social side. Here our end and
aim is to secure to all the sons of Adam an equal right to life,
liberty and pursuit of happiness by securing to them an equal
right in the bounties of nature--and passing strange it certainly
is that men who would not dream of denying this right in the
abstract are ever ready to anathematize it in the concrete.
With the Single Tax in force, that is, with the plain behest of
nature observed and respected, no man will hold land out of use
when, whether he uses it or not, he must pay to the community its
annual value for the privilege of monopolizing it. No man will
hold land for a rise in community value when that value is taken
from him for the use of the community as fast as it arises. No
man will need to mortgage his home and the earnings of his
most vigorous years to a boomer or speculator for the privilege
of living on the earth for there will be no boomer or speculator
to sell him the privilege, and the privilege itself will have
ceased to be such and become an indefeasible right.
"He (Mr. George) is a well-intentioned man who confidently
believes he can make the poverty-stricken millions prosperous by
revoking the taxes of the rich and increasing the burthens of the
poor." Fie, fie! What is to be gained by such transparent,
palpable misrepresentation as this? Do you verily believe that
land values, which Mr. George proposes to tax, are mainly in
possession of the poor? Did you not see--of course you did--a
diagrammatic exhibit made not long ago by the New York Herald of
the holdings of twenty New York real estate owners? Let me quote
a passage from an article in the New York Journal on this
exhibit:
"The reason 170 families own half of Manhattan Island, as stated
in the Herald, and that 1,800,000 out of the two million
residents of Manhattan Island, until very recently, had no
interest whatever, except as renters, in this superb property, is
because, until the last few years, it required a fortune to own
the smallest separate parcel of this great estate. Only the rich
could participate in its ownership, its income, its profits."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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