Page:David Atkins - The Economics of Freedom (1924).pdf/347

 the United States in the price of beef and also in the Government wage-scale.

As far as local taxation is concerned, it should rest upon the same base, but there would be wide differences in temperament. If Twin Falls, Idaho, wants a triumphal arch, its landowners would first sanction it, then pay for it—and later, if the arch were sufficiently beautiful to attract population, would raise the rents, and by so doing would automatically raise the basic government wage, which would be reflected at the Twin Falls Industrial Army recruiting office.

The adjustment proposed involves the abandonment of all taxes on equipment, facilities, improvements, inheritances, incomes, production, effort, thrift and need. It recognizes only measurable control of value as the proper base for taxation or the insurance of value. Our personal-property tax,—which is confiscation of the small property-holder’s capital, income tax, —which is the blunting of our best edged tools, and consumption taxes,—which are a tribute forced from need,—these are all put deliberately in the discard, where they should have been long since. It is natural enough for the political-economist to argue that taxation should be based upon “faculty.” The trouble is that, under our present bungling, this faculty has drifted into the wrong hands!

We must bear in mind that it is proposed to hold all land-ownership responsible, since the Municipality, the County, the State, and the Federal Government itself, are all merely corporations from an economic point of view, with varying constituents. If this is understood, land-area owned by the Federal Government, within a Municipality, County or State, should pay its pro rata of local taxation; on the other hand, a Municipality, a County or a State should all pay their pro rata of the cost of Federal Government in proportion to their corporate land-holdings. This provision will eliminate many confusing inequities to which allusion has already been made.