Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/762

 THE SINGLE TAX : WHAT AND WHY.

In all ages, men who aspire to a reputation for great wisdom have found much more difficulty in comprehending simple truths than in comprehending complicated ones. Whenever a new theory is brought forward, with a claim on its behalf to far- reaching importance, and yet such a theory appears to be simple, clear, and easy of comprehension, everybody responds with an incredulous: "Is that all?"

Such is the fortune of the single-tax theory. Nothing is more simple or more easily understood ; yet many learned men dismiss the subject from their minds, upon the express ground that nobody can understand what the single tax is. Other learned, sincere, and earnest men attempt to define it, and immediately compound such a mixture of abstruse perplexi- ties that they pronounce it an utterly impracticable scheme. Roughly speaking, it may be said that there are only two classes of people who understand what the single tax is ; the one being the large and growing class who believe in it, and the other the small but immensely powerful class who know that it would deprive them of the privilege of taxing their fellow-men.

Be it right or wrong, the idea of the single tax is one of the simplest, most straightforward, easily understood, and easily carried into practical execution, within the whole range of polit- ical economy. The very idea of a "single tax," that is, of abol- ishing the present vast multiplicity of taxes, nearly all of which are admitted by everybody to be injurious, and of collecting all public revenue by one tax, is perfectly simple ; and, taken by itself, it is so absolutely just and reasonable that nothing can be said against it. Whether it is practicable or not is an entirely separate question. But if it is possible to discover one tax which will be just, equal, and practicable, and which will supply all the proper requirements of all governments, one can hardly conceive of any ground of objection to the collection of all government revenue by that tax. Even if there are other taxes just as good,

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