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2015HENRY GEORGE

AND THE

ECONOMISTS

«§•

C. B. FILLEBROWN
SUMMER. STREET, BOSTON

1914! 9 <z / ^ o
i -j j fe> ^

\ R-s£/

FOREWORD

t&THE JEW A STUMBLING STONE,
tO THE GENTILE A ROCK OF
OFFENCE.

many people the greatest immediate
n&ed of the Single Tax movement is that its
zfrtends should agree upon clear ideas re-
hgarding POSSESSION, OWNERSHIP,
^MONOPOLY, CONFISCATION. 4s *o
POSSESSION or OWNERSHIP, tfiere is
already agreement with respect to the thing
itself; the difference is in regard to name.
Tim ^nothing from nothing and nothing
remains, except exposure on all sides to the
batteries of misrepresentation. As to the
KERNEL of private property in land — to
. the speculator, it is monopoly, to the occupier
Vjind user it is ownership. The single tax
~an destroy monopoly; it cannot destroy
!ownership. As to CONFISCATION, when
Henry George wrote in Progress and
Poverty: "It is not necessary to con-
fiscate land, it is only necessary to confiscate
rent" it may be said in extenuation of his
flagrant misuse of a term of well established
meaning, that he descended from his own
exact arid correct custom and adopted by
way of implied retort the verbal corruption
of his critics. No man's ipse dixit can
make taxation confiscation.

v "0 wad some power the giftie gie us,
} To see ourseVs as ithers see us
/ It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
And foolish notionHENRY GEORGE AND THE
ECONOMISTS.

The mutual attitude of Single Taxers and
Professors today may not be easy to define,
but the topic would furnish to those concerned
what Horace Greeley was wont to call
" mighty interestin* readin\" Unquestion-
ably there has been among the professional
economists a tendency not so much to attack
as perhaps to ignore the Single Taxers.
Among the various causes for this attitude
one might be assigned as a certain pronounced
air of bumptiousness often observable on the
part of single tax advocates. To this extent,
without doubt, Single Taxers themselves will
confess it to be their own fault if the pro-
fessors are not enamoured of them. Jealous
for their champion and sharing his sensitive-
ness to the indifference of the professors,
Single Taxers have allowed themselves even
in scattered times and places to generate and
foster a spirit of animosity sufficient to keep
the oppdsing lines well defined. It cannot be
denied, as reports have shown, that Single
Taxers frequently have not been over-con-
siderate of the feelings of the professors.
Indeed the professors seem to be given over
by the average Single Taxer as a bad lot.
On the other hand, who is there that can fur-
nish any consequential list of professors who
have attacked with any degree of malignity
Henry George or his particular theory of
taxation?

Militancy is not without distinguished
apologists. There are people who believe
that whatever is good in the world should be
fought for. Peaceful people hold that in a
fight, the thing fought for is apt to be lost sight
of, and that the truth conquers in spite of the
fighting. Some of us are happy in believing
that militancy is on the wane, — less between
the nations, less among the churches, less
among men. Many war phases of a few
centuries ago are extinct today. In most
fields of reform, however, there are plenty of

5fighters who can be trusted to live the gospel
they profess. Indeed, reformers as a class
esteem it the natural course to fight the com-
mon enemy, often to fight among themselves.
Single Taxers are no exception. All their
official organs and their advocates, with few
exceptions, are heralded to " fight" for the
cause, and they do it.

It would be interesting to know if there be
any considerable number of the many public
lecturers and speakers for the Single Tax who
have not at some time spoken slightingly of
an economist or of his profession? It would
be interesting to know what Single Tax organs
have not frequently or infrequently spoken
disparagingly of the professor of political
economy? A list of them would be welcome
to be framed in gold.

Scholastic discussions, unless carefully
guarded, are likely to leave a bad taste in the
mouth. By a hasty or inconsiderate word a
battle of principles may degenerate at once
into undignified personalities. For example
in a notable foreign instance: a certain pro-
fessor is confronted by the complimentary
statement that " the teachings of modern
economists begin and end nowhere"; that
his own teachings " all through showed a
decided intellectual incapacity to stand by eny
positive statement"; that his views "illus-
trate the folly of rushing into a controversy
without preparation or knowledge "; and that
" he must still be considered a tyro both in
economics and ethics." Yet this delinquent
economist "approved of taxation of land
values twenty shillings in the pound " and
gently remonstrated," Is it really worth while
to spend so much time and space in attacking
those who want the same thing you want?
Is not such conduct an example of the per-
versity and futility into which these men of
one idea, whom the world bluntly calls
cranks, so often fall?"

Not only are flagrant examples of offensive
insinuation frequent, but there is a super-
cilious, patronizing style of writing that

6violates good taste, instances of which might
easily be multiplied. For example, notwith-
standing the declaration of a professor that,
if government had started with Single Tax,
we should have had from the first a practically
burdenless tax, and that the landowner today
is paying to a private individual all that he
would pay to the government beside direct,
indirect and monopoly taxes, which the Single
Tax would abolish, yet, because it is thought
that this professor " falls down" before
" full Single Tax," he is reminded, after a
honeyed compliment to " most of his Univer-
sity brethren," that he is better posted than
they, that he " owes it to those who look to
one in his position for a clear exposition of
the principles of political economy, to revise
his argument." Is this species of veiled
affront likely to win the leading economists,
their brethren and their following to our
reform?

This backward survey may well begin with
the notable gathering of economists and
Single Taxers at the Conference of the Ameri-
can Social Science Association, Saratoga,
New York, September 5, 1890. Though not
without its note of discord, this was a dis-
tinguished occasion, bringing together a
company of truly representative men, many
of them today men of distinction. The
Conference was devoted entirely to a dis-
cussion of the Single Tax. Beside Mr.
George, Messrs. S. B. Clarke, Louis F. Post,
William Lloyd Garrison, and James R.
Carret spoke in support of his views. Pro-
fessors J. B. Clark and E. R. A. Seligman,
both now of Columbia University, Dr. William
T. Harris, United States Commissioner of
Education, President E. Benjamin Andrews
then of Brown University, Professor Thomas
Davidson of New York, and Professor E. J.
James then of the University of Pennsylvania
i&bk ~ opposite grounds. Mr. George was
accorded every courtesy of debate by the
Prtfessors. Regarding the general harmony
of this occasion, the Secretary testifies that

7in the records of the Conference " no word
was expunged nor was there any but the
most cordial feeling toward Mr. George."
Professor Seligman, while indulging a digni-
fied resentment at Mr. George's insinuation
of hypocrisy in the ranks of the professors,
said in their defense:

"It is grossly unjust to ascribe
to the Professors of Political Econ-
omy a truckling or even an un-
conscious subservience to the
powers that be. All history dis-
proves this. . . No one is more
desirous of attaining social peace,
no one has today a deeper sympathy
with the unhappy lot of the toilers,
no one is more anxious to seek out
the true harmony of social interests,

than the student of political economy.
If we thought that you had solved
the problem, we would enthrone
you high on our council seats, we
would reverently bend the knee and
acknowledge in you a master, a
prophet."

The next important public utterance of
Mr. George after the Saratoga conference
was " The Perplexed Philosopher," wherein
he arraigned Mr. Spencer in unsparing terms
for recantation of what he considered funda-
mental truths. In 1850, Mr. Spencer had
announced that private property in land was
wrong. In 1882 he announced that private
property in land was not wrong. Mr.
George vigorously assailed the soundness
and the motive of this change of views. As
between condemnation and argument in this
critique the former would seem at first
glance to preponderate. It was a grievance
to Mr. George that Mr. Spencer chose to
ignore the former's book and his work, not
so much as deigning to read " Progress and
Poverty," referring to it as " A work which
I closed after a few minutes on finding how

8visionary were its qualities." Also, Mr.
Spencer believed in materialism and evolu-
tion; Mr. George did not. Mr. George had
once met and abruptly parted from Mr.
Spencer at a private dinner. Indeed, as a
resultant of mutual mental hostility these
two gentlemen were so little enamored of
one another that one could hardly expect
to find in 4 4 The Perplexed Philosopher"
t sympathetic review of Herbert Spencer.

The beginning of the controversy between
Creorge and Spencer may be traced back to
January, 1883, when the Edinburgh Review,
in an article entitled " The Nationalization
of Land" gave a fair review of "Progress
and Poverty," in which were coupled the,
names of George and Spencer, both as'
associated with Communism. The latter,
having little or no knowledge of the former's
ideas, shrank like a sensitive plant from being
classed with him, just as hosts of sensible
people will tell you today that they can affiliate
with the Single Tax but not with the fads and
fancies of many Single Taxers. Mr. Spencer
was also sensitive that the reviewers should
have neglected his synthetic pretentions until
their attention was called to his " Social
Statics," a book thirty years old, and even
then only in connection with the book of
another man. Mr. Spencer stated his
position in a letter to the St. James Gazette
of London, which called forth replies and
rejoinders from Huxley, Tyndall, John
Morley, John Laidley and others. Thus was
opened up a controversy which from the
first exhibited in ample proportions the free
solution of testiness. Finally, in "The
Perplexed Philosopher," Mr. George went
out of his way, as it were, to make analytical
disposal of Mr. Spencer's pet synthetic
labors of a lifetime, his evolution and his
materialism. The following isolated passages
show the animus with which he proceeded
to treat the alleged recantation:

" I do not regard this as contro-
9versy. It is rather exposure. In
turning his back on all he has said
before, Mr. Spencer has not argued,
and no explanation is possible that
does not impute motives. . . . In-
stead of manfully defending the
truth he had uttered, or straight-
forwardly recanting it, Mr. Spencer
sought to shelter himself behind
ifs and buts, perhapses and it-may-
bes, and the implication of untruths.
. . . Mr. Spencer has had much to
say of the unfairness of his critics,
but this reply is not merely unfair;
it is dishonest, and that in a way that
makes flat falsehood seem manly.
. . . This letter (Mr. Spencers) is
merely an attempt to avoid respon-
sibility and to placate by subterfuge
the powerful landed interests now
aroused to anger. . . . Social
Statics has been disemboweled,
stuffed, mummified, and then set
up in the gardens of the Spencerian
philosophy, where it may be viewed
with entire complacency by Sir John
and his Grace. . . . Mr. Spencer
is thus untruthful in regard to what
he has taught in Social Statics, he
is equally untruthful in regard to
his suppression of that book. . . .
This treatment of land, or the sur-
face of the earth, as but one of the
natural media, is in the highest
degree unphilosophic, and could be
adopted onJy for the purpose of con-
fusion. ... By aid of double-
barreled ethics and philosophic
legerdemain, Mr. Spencer evidently
hopes to keep some reputation for
consistency and yet uphold private
property in land. . . . They have
their choice between intellectual
incapacity and intellectual dis-
honesty. . . . He, Mr. Spencer,
stands ready to sacrifice to his new

10masters not only his moral honesty,
but, even what the morally depraved
often cling to,—the pretence of intel-
lectual honesty.... In this Chapter,
41 Justice on the Right to Land," he
(Mr. Spencer) proves himself alike
a traitor to all that he once held
and to aU that he now holds —
a conscious and deliberate traitor,
who assumes the place of the philos-
opher, the office of the judge, only
~ to darken truth and to deny justice;
to sell out the right of the wronged
and to prostitute his powers in the
defense of the wronger. ... Is it
a wonder that intellectually, as
morally, this chapter is beneath
contempt? . . . That part of our
examination which crosses what is
now his distinctive philosophy shows
him to be as a philosopher ridiculous,
as a man contemptible — a fawning
Vicar of Bray, clothing in pompous
phraseology and arrogant assump-
tion logical confusions so absurd as
to be comical."

Reviewing the whole controversy today, it
is not easy to see how the rules of polemics
justified the severe language of Mr. George
in which he made his isolated arraignment
of the great apostle of evolution. Today a
student of Spencer would be amazed to find
his revision in 1882 of his views of 1850 made
the target for such unmeasured censure and
detraction. And what is this offence of
Mr. Spencer's that so smells to Heaven?
Simply this, and nothing more:— In " Social
Statics " he said that private property inland
was wrong; in " Justice," forty years later,
he said that private property in land was not
wrong. The initial error was in the lack of
a clear definition of the point at issue. The
tenet of the wrong of private property in
land is in itself generally conceded to be
false and untenable. But George and

11Spencer appear to have conceived themselves
constrained to this belief by the false logic
of an inverted argument, to wit:

Since all have a common right to
the rent of land, the product of their
collective labor and expenditure,
therefore all must have a common
right to the land itself, the gift of
nature.

Had the issue been framed in two propo-
sitions, instead of one, as follows:

(1).	All have an equal right to the ^
surface of the earth in its original
state, because it is a gift of nature.

(2).	All have a common or joint
right to the artificial rent of land,
because it is a common creation,

there might never have arisen the barren and
profitless discussion that is now being con-
sidered here, for then the two protagonists
might conceivably come to an agreement
that the second of these propositions is
sound, while the first is crude and false.

In order to show that Mr. Spencer was
culpable in this recantation it is needful for
Mr. George to establish the position that
Spencer was right in saying in 1850 that " the
right of mankind at large to the earth's
surface is still valid; all deeds, customs and
laws notwithstanding." This leads ta a
survey and criticism of George's argument
of 1891 as compared with Spencer's on the
same point in 1850.

Henry George wrote in " Our Land and
Land Policy" in 1872, as follows:

"It by no means follows that
there should be no such thing as
property in land, but merely that
there should be no monopolization
— no standing between the man who
is willing to work and the field which
nature offers for his labor. For

12while it is true that the land of a
country is the free gift of the Creator
to all the people of that country, to
the enjoyment of which each has an
equal natural right, it is also true
that the recognition of private owner-
ship of land is necessary to its proper
use — is, in fact, a condition of
civilization."

This statement of George can suffer no
Contradiction. Its truth is grounded in
Reason, science and fact. Conceding indi-
;yidual title to land, he demanded the social-
ization of rent by taxation. Title to the
land itself, stable tenure, estate in land,
ownership of land in severalty, whether its
value is one dollar or a million dollars, is
necessary to security of improvements.
Title to the annual value of land — ground
rent — is not necessary to the security of
improvements, which would be equally
secure whether one-quarter or three-quarters
of ground rent be taken in taxation. Neither
in private more than in public ownership of
land is there any moral or economic wrong.

There is a persistent though not inexcus-
able tendency among economists to confuse
the Single Tax and land nationalization.
Professor Seligman, in the eighth edition
of his " Essays in Taxation," thinks himself
justified in laying before his 200,000 students
and emulators in the United States colleges
and universities the following disposal of
the Single Tax belief:

" Land is the creation of God. . . .
Therefore no one has a right to
own land. . . . When the change
advocated is a direct reversal of the
progress of centuries, and a rever-
sion to primitive conditions away
from which all history has travelled,
the necessity for its absolute proof
becomes far stronger. The nation-
alization of land is a demand which

isin order to win general acceptance
must be based on theories indepen-
dent of the doctrine of equal right."

And lo! from whom does such a rapier
thrust come, but from a gracious professor
to whom Single Taxers are gratefully in-
debted for courtesies and hospitalities, who
has journeyed to promote its discussions and
who at Saratoga forestalled by a generation^
the Single Taxers themselves in the inestim-C
able service of blocking out a keystone to-
the Single Tax arch demonstrating fully a-
proposition previously recognized, but nof
effectively utilized, viz: that the new pur^
chaser of land, buying as he does free of
tax, escapes all tax burden. Following is
his statement made at Saratoga, which has
yet to be improved upon:

"It is apparent that the value of
the land will fall in exact proportion
to the increase of the tax, until when
the tax equals the entire rent the
value of the land will be zero. Dur-
ing these successive stages, however,
the new purchasers lose nothing.
The diminished rent wiU still yield
them the same rate of interest as
before, because of the diminished
capital value on which the interest
is computed."

Professor Ely of the University of Wiscon-
sin also has been favoring English farmers
with his views in the following language:

" I have no sympathy whatever
with the Single Taxer in this
country or any other country. . . .
No civilization has been built up in
modern times upon anything else
than the private ownership of the
land; and if you remove that, as the
Single Taxer proposes to do, it seems
to me that you would remove the
solid, substantial foundation of
modern civilization."

14B. it what has this to do with the Single
Tax? It was George's special triumph over
Spencer, that while himself distinctly con-
ceding the legal ownership, individual tenure
of or estate in the land itself, the very thing
that forced from Spencer his recantation*
he corrected and advanced the issue from
the common right to the use of the earth,
to the joint right to the enjoyment of rent,
tanking clear the distinction that land is
one thing and the rent of land another and
different thing — that to take in taxation the
r&nt of land it is not necessary to take the
lagd itself. The nationalization of land,
mth its incidental enlargement of govern-
ment functions, formed no part of George's
program. We appeal to the brotherhood of
economists at the present stage of the art
of taxation to forgive us for expostulating
lustily against such a travesty of the Single
Tax as that it implies the abolition of the
institution of private property in land.

In it, on the other hand, complimentary to
the keepers of the Single Tax ark, and the
variegated expositors of its doctrine that
after thirty years of discussion and disputa-
tion nearly every " objector" down to this
very day is spending the half of his am-
munition upon deserted earthworks, viz.:
that the Single Tax means the overthrow
of the institution of private property in land,
and that Henry George stood for the nation-
alization of land. If Henry George had gone
so far even as to have put himself under the
dominance of a " steering committee"
chosen from his enemies the professors, he
could hardly have fared worse than he has
done at the hands of his friends. Listen to
the remarks of a well-known disciple at a
Heiiry George Memorial Meeting, the like
of which subtly do incalculable damage to
any great cause, because subject to misunder-
standing:

" I believe we are in a revolu-
tionary movement. If I did not

15think so I wouldn't be interested
in it. We are in a movement which >
aims to let the poor and the disin- !
herited own the earth, and that "
movement is sweeping over the
entire civilized world."	|

If the speaker had said private owners]
of land itself is right but private appropriat!
of the rent of land is wrong, there wo
have been no poison to his arrow.

If it be granted, however, as many of
professed followers maintain, that He
George did really believe that individ
permanent title, tenure or estate in land,
wrong, then when Spencer in 1882 recan
the first six Sections of his original So<
Statics (1850) the championship of t
barren doctrine was left practically to Hej
George alone, as no other economist
note can be now recalled to share the hon
with him.

After all, have not haggled long enot
about what Mr. * George said, or mea
What is wanted is a science of obtaining
normal revenue of a community. 1
immense forward strides in the developm
of economic science in general ought to mi
it possible to determine the truth regard
his system even independent of what
said forty years ago. If this reconciliatioi
not possible, why not discharge the Sis
Tax at once of this incubus and handicap
"common" property in land, wash off the sfc
and strike out de novo, for a science of nati
revenue if needs be, sans Spencer, s
George, sans theories, sans speculations?This book is a preservation facsimile produced for
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