The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10Brann, William Cowper
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The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 10
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
Now is it your view that all this is but clumsy lying, and that
in reality it is the poor people of New York as of other large
cities that own the bulk of its land values? Again you say, "He
would equalize the conditions of Dives and Lazarus by removing
the tax from the palace of the one and laying it upon the potato
patch of the other." This statement is much more artistic than
the preceding one. It wears a jaunty semblance of truth. Indeed
it is true in a sense as far as it goes. But it is vague and
incomplete, and for that reason as deceptive and misleading as
half truths always are. With your permission I will fill it out
in parenthesis and convert it into an honest whole truth: "He
would equalize the conditions of (both freedom and justice for)
Dives and Lazarus by removing the tax from the palace of the one
(and from the labor products of the other) and laying it upon
(the community value of the land occupied by the palace and) the
potato patch of the other." Now, if the potato patches of the
poor occupy, as a rule, more valuable land than the palaces of
the rich, there might be some apparent ground for your
contention. It would be only apparent, however, for in such a
case the potato patch would be as much out of place as a public
school on a wharf front. To devote highly valuable land to
ordinary potato culture would be about as sensible as to print
the Sunday edition of the Galveston News on costly linen paper.
One of the virtues of the Single Tax is its potency to prevent
such stupid waste of opportunity. Your way of stating the case,
however, has this virtue that it is a welcome variation of the
old wearisome chestnut about the poor widow owning a valuable
lot, etc.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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