Page:Rise and Fall of Society.djvu/132

 Then, there is the matter of equity. Since the social services attract population and are therefore conducive to greater production, which in turn increases rent, it would seem that the cost of maintaining them is a proper charge against rent. It can be argued that rent rises in proportion to the availability of services provided by private specialists, such as factories, doctors, railroads, entertainers, and merchants. But these are the concomitants of population density, which is directly influenced by the conditions which make the locality a desirable place to live in. It may be possible to earn as much money wages for a given amount of labor in a mining camp, where no social services are available, but a mining camp is a poor place to spend one's life in. The density and productivity of population is the primary cause of rent, but contributory to density and productivity are the social services provided in the locality. Hence, it seems equitable that this rent be used to defray the costs.

Finally, there is the obvious improvement in the abundance of the market place if taxes were abolished, if production were relieved of the cost of providing social services. A tax is a levy on earnings; it is a draft on the wages that would, if left with the earner, result in effective demand for goods and services. They are made poorer by the levy. On the other hand, rent is not a charge against production but is merely payment for the opportunity to produce. The merchant who says that he does not care what the rent of his location is so long as he can do the business there, is an excellent economist; he knows that he is not out of pocket for the rent he pays, that this payment is merely a yardstick of the volume of sales made possible at that location. If he sets up shop in a less traveled area, he will pay less rent, but he will also do less business. And he knows that the price he 108