Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/774

 754 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

rents, thus collected, would in turn collect from the landlord a sum exactly proportioned. to the benefits which he has received from being permitted to collect from others that for which he toiled not, neither did he spin. No one can devise an honest method of col- lecting a single tax on ground rents, which will lay the burden of taxation otherwise than in exact proportion to the benefits con- ferred by government. Without government, it is obvious that the landlord could not collect a dollar. And the market value of every improvement in government goes to the direct benefit of the landlord. The more economically, honestly, and efficiently any government is administered, the higher will be the rents which tenants are glad to pay for the privilege of living under it ; and thus the entire cream of the benefits thus conferred goes directly to the landlord.

It would make this paper too long to show how and why an exclusive tax upon land values would suffice to meet all the requirements of government, and yet leave a very handsome sur- plus to landlords.

It has been amply demonstrated elsewhere that all taxes together would not absorb half the rent of the land ; and no attempt has ever been made to refute the statistics given.' But even if this could not be proved, that would constitute no rea- son whatever for not collecting for public revenue as much as possibly could be collected out of ground rent. It would be time enough to add other taxes, all necessarily unjust and une- qual, to this just, simple, and equal tax, when it had been found in practice insufficient.

In Great Britain, where the land is all monopolized in the possession of a few, no one pretends that the poorer classes of the community would suffer by the adoption of the single tax. All sympathy there is expended upon the unfortunate wealthy ; who might, by the adoption of such a system, be deprived of some of their purple and fine linen. In the United States, the eloquence and ingenuity of opponents of the single tax are mostly concentrated in plaintive sympathy for the poor farmers.

The arguments against the single tax, made ostensibly on

■ Natural Taxation^ chap. x.