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The American Journal of Economics & Sociology's special edition volume on Rent and Labor Exploitation explores various aspects of exploitation in the context of current world events. The papers in this volume shed light on issues such as housing affordability, racial discrimination in banking, ancient labor practices, agribusiness rent extraction, and the impact of higher apartment rent levels on health insurance enrollment. The journal aims to provide a platform for diverse perspectives on economic rent, labor exploitation, and social justice, encouraging readers to draw their own conclusions. [Extracted from the article]

Abstract: At the beginning of the 20th century, Vancouver obtained international acclaim as a “single‐tax” city. Supporters claimed that land value taxation was responsible for the spectacular growth of the city. Even critics believed that it had produced a building boom and declining rents. Yet, over several decades, the system was scaled back and ultimately ended in 1984. This article argues that the property tax revolt can be understood with Mancur Olson's model of collective action. Property owners are better organized than other parties impacted by housing policy because they have financial resources and a salient economic concern in housing. Thus, the special interests of property owners in higher values and unrestricted use prevailed over the interests of tenants and prospective buyers. While the property tax revolt was often articulated in the progressive language of ability to pay, when confronted with progressive counterarguments, it collapsed into explicit arguments for rent‐seeking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the author talks about the topics discussed within the issue including distribution of landed property, role of land in the development of a Polish immigrants, and decline of land value taxation in Vancouver.

Unravelling the social and economic roots of urban inequality in Africa has remained a thorny issue in African political economy. Stripped to its bare essentials, the critical questions are who causes urban inequality, what causes it, and how it is caused? While all different, the questions are interrelated. Answering the 'who causes inequality' question requires a related analysis of what and why, and that is connected to the how question. Indeed, the how question has two parts-how inequality is caused and how it can be addressed. Both are connected to the why question and to its resolution. Unfortunately, while studies about urban inequality abound, they tend to hive off one aspect or another of the tripartite questions on inequality and, even worse, they study the three questions separately. This article tries to overcome the existing atomistic and piecemeal approach to the study of urban inequality in Africa by contextualizing the work of Jane Jacobs and Henry George, who took a holistic view of urban inequality. It argues that Jacobsianism and Georgism have much to offer in terms of understanding urban inequality in Africa, but neither analysis goes far enough to be able to serve as a solid foundation for policy. Ultimately, it is in their approach to urban analysis-the emphasis on context, on actual urban problems, inductivism, and some of their mechanisms for change such as George's land tax and cautious abstraction, in that order, along with their combined vision-which I call 'diversity in equality'-that can add to the insights of postcolonialism in understanding and transforming urban inequality in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Henry George and Jane Jacobs were both journalists and made a contribution to economics based on their commitment to the original version of free trade, as understood by 19th-century liberals, rather than the late 20th-century version. The distinctive concept of free trade, as originally understood, was as an instrument for small-scale producers to break up entrenched monopolies and serve the interests of the ordinary citizen. That was how Cobden used it in the debates over the Corn Laws in the 1840s, and how Ruskin, Gesell, Chesterton, and other critics conceived of economic liberation. In debates over free trade in recent decades, that term has come to mean a defense of power and privilege, the exact opposite of the intent of 19th-century liberals. George and Jacobs sought to restore the original meaning by developing theories of development and distribution that would enable the market system to benefit everyone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The solutions that Jane Jacobs proposed to improve neighborhoods created a paradoxical problem: improvement increased demand for the amenities of the area, which caused land prices to rise. The net result was at least partial displacement of the old residents of the neighborhood with new ones. Jane Jacobs has been criticized for ignoring gentrification, but she was clearly aware of this process and tried to find means to counter it. By combining the ideas of Henry George about land taxation with the ideals of Jane Jacobs about neighborhood diversity, we can mitigate the negative effects of gentrification and direct the energy of market forces into producing a greater supply of desirable neighborhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work is a fundamental reality of human existence. This essay examines in general terms the idea of work and labor, briefly explains the biblical foundation of George's perspective on work, and presents George's analysis on unemployment, technological change, and true competition. Finally, it discusses how access to the natural opportunities land provides liberates labor and advances the just distribution of wealth, connects these insights to Catholic Social Teachings (CST), and calls for more cooperation between these natural allies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Henry George's opposition to free immigration may be surprising in light of his positions on other aspects of economic theory and policy. This essay reviews George's statements on immigration policy, discusses inconsistencies of these statements with his positions on free trade and Malthusian population theory, compares George's views with the neoclassical economic perspective on immigration, and suggests that implementation of George's policy of taxing land values would share the gains from immigration in a manner that might reduce opposition to open borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a neighborhood declines, the poor get poorer, crime rises, and those who can leave the area. The tax base shrinks, so the rates paid by those least able to pay increase. The prevailing system of a low tax on land values leads to land speculation and private land banking, assuring that the landowner can hold out for a very high price for a very long time. A higher tax on land values (coupled with reduction in building taxes) creates an incentive to sell that land or do something with it rather than waiting. In cities that use land-value taxes, real-estate markets start to work again and neighborhoods recover. Clairton, Pennsylvania's adoption of a land-value-taxation system demonstrates the neighborhood revitalization to which it leads, as owner-occupied residences and multi-family units saw a relief in their tax burden. In contrast, vacant properties' contribution to the city budget tripled, providing the resources to pay for the education of Clairton's children and liberate working and middle-class families from the bonds of labor and capital taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay addresses concerns of economic and wealth distribution, especially as they challenge the developing world. The foundation for any new framework of economic thought must embody a structure that allows for a sustainable future, not only for individuals but also for whole societies and economic units, and the assurance of minimal standards of living for the entire world's people. The Georgist position is that all the natural resources of the earth and sky should require payment back to society for the privilege of their use. Hence the recovery of rent is the proper source of finance for government services, restoring what is otherwise an imbalance between the public and the private realms of society. The Georgist philosophy offers economic justice and clarity of vision, restoration of and protection for the commons, and protection for the environment of the earth in a deft and gentle way that is within the capacity of governments to implement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay surveys the issues between Georgists and Roman Catholics in three classes: issues that are not peculiarly Roman Catholic (RC) but play out across faiths and denominations, issues that are peculiarly RC, and points of similarity and agreement. Addressed in this fashion are the tensions that arise between the social gospel and individual salvation, between specifics and glittering generalities, between noblesse oblige and governmental reform, between the doctrine of original sin and tabula rasa, between the rich and the poor, between the dignity of labor and the honor of predation, between democracy and authority, between the regulatory emphasis rooted in the philosophy of Aquinas and free markets, and between plain talk and gobbledegook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1907 Edwin Cannan fired off a round at local rating of site values. He pointed out that a city taxing only site values to provide free public services would attract too many people and too much capital. A city is an open economy, free to immigration of everything but land, something like an open range or fishery. Even if all cities tax only site values, cities with more rents per head may support public services at higher levels, and so attract immigrants. This distorts locational decisions, attracting people to jobs of lesser productivity where they may gain from better public services. This is Cannan's Law. There are three bad results from Cannan's Law. One is an uneconomical distribution of population, as cities with more rentable lands attract more of mobile labor and capital than they should. A second bad result is what economists call dissipation of economic rent. As Cannan writes, if a locality uses its rents to benefit all its inhabitants, people will flock to the richest places until there is no further gain to immigrants because they have wiped out all the rent. A third bad result of Cannan's Law is to lower the incentive of local governments to provide public services that are open to all comers. It fosters local institutions and attitudes that are harshly hostile to newcomers and outsiders, especially to the poor, young, homeless, hungry, and vagrant.

Thomas Nixon Carver was the author of eighteen books on sociology, social philosophy, and even religion, as well as on economics, including Essays in Social Justice, which contains a unique chapter, The Single Tax. What makes the chapter unique is that in it Carver firmly endorses a large measure of land-value taxation for reasons of his own, while at the same time attacking, sometimes scathingly, many of the arguments advanced for its adoption by Henry George and his followers. The land-value tax has much to commend it in Carver's eyes. He specifies three distinct advantages that would result to modern society through an increase in the taxation of land values. Such an increase would discourage the holding of valuable land out of use for speculative purposes. By thus bringing land into best use, it would stimulate the demand for labor and capital, augmenting the returns for working and productive saving. Taxation on active industry would be reduced in proportion as the burden is placed on the site value of land. This would invariably encourage business and industry, since people would not be penalized for production or improvements, and there would be no incentive to hold a site vacant or to put it to some use below its optimum. All would make goods more abundant for everyone in the community. It would tend to eliminate the waste of the labor power of those who live upon the unearned increment of land, devoting themselves to idle self-indulgence, or to the dissipation of their investing talent in land speculation, which is not only sterile but actually detrimental to the creation of national wealth.

Monsignor John A. Ryan devoted the bulk of three chapters in his great work, Distributive Justice, to a critique of Henry George's so-called single-tax doctrine. Ryan begins his analysis by addressing himself to George's attack upon the idea that first occupancy establishes a valid original title to landownership. Ryan seeks to destroy this argument by saying that George attributes to the title created by first occupancy qualities that it does not possess and consequences for which it is not responsible. He claims that the correct interpretation of this title does not attribute to it, as George imagined, an unlimited right of ownership either extensively or intensively. As a general and abstract proposition, Ryan recognizes the equal right of all men to the use of nature, and he concedes that private ownership of land can never bring about ideal justice in distribution of natural opportunities. But he claims that the institution is not necessarily out of harmony with the demands of practical justice, because a community may lack the knowledge or the power to establish the ideal system. Ryan rejects the Georgist argument that rent should be appropriated by society because it is socially produced. He remarks, to begin with, that all land value is not socially produced; although no land can have value without being brought into relation with society, neither can it have value if it possesses no natural qualities suitable for the satisfaction of human wants.

In 1917 there appeared in Spain the most voluminous of all assaults upon the teaching of Henry George concerning single tax, a 383-page tome by Father Juan Alcázar Alvarez, bearing the appropriately ponderous title, Estudio filos&ocacute;fico crítico del libro Progreso y miseria, de Henry George, en sus cuestiones fundamentales y el alivio social. It was published by Perlado, P´ez y Compañia of Madrid, with the imprimatur of the bishop and ecclesiastic governor of Madrid-Alcal´. The Estudio filosófico is of some significance because it indicates that during a period of several decades in which sustained literary discussion of George was extremely rare, there were individuals in far away Iberia who deemed him to be so potent a thinker that he deserved 383 published pages of response. The books draws together most of the more notable misconceptions about Georgist theory into one albeit too-lengthy book, and thus becomes a useful if dreary compendium of anti-Georgist absurdities. The book does point up important areas where George left himself open to unnecessary attack. Lastly, the book offers some insight into the curious contest that went on during the 1880s between Henry George and prelates of the Catholic Church.

This article focuses on the response of Emil O. Jorgensen to economist Richard T. Ely's criticisms of the single tax proposal by Henry George. His most extensive criticisms of the single tax are contained in his Outlines of Land Economics and his Outlines of Economics. In 1925 Ely and his Outlines of Land Economics were the targets of a 205-page attack by a Georgist, Emil O. Jorgensen, the vitriolic tone of which is typified by its cumbersome but pugnacious title. False Education in Our Colleges and Universities: An Exposé of Professor. Richard T. Ely and His Institute for Research in Land Economics and Public Utilities was published in Chicago by the Manufacturers and Merchants Federal Tax League, of which Jorgensen was information director. It accuses Ely of bias, hypocrisy, and mendacity, and strongly implies that the policies of his Institute were tailored to accommodate the landed interests prominent among its donors. Whether or not Jorgensen was justified in impugning Ely's motives, he could scarcely have chosen a better way to vitiate the effectiveness of his offensive. One finds it difficult to escape the conclusion that, were it not for Ely's prestige, many of his postures would be dismissed as perverse by most economists, regardless of their estimate of George, and that these postures fairly invited Jorgensen's intemperate response. Had Jorgensen been content to concentrate his fire on these without resorting to personal invective, his book might have been more successful in accomplishing its purpose. However, in his attempted refutation of the thirty-two chief fallacies that he purports to find in the Outlines of Land Economics and, to a lesser extent, in other works by Ely, Jorgensen does manage to score some telling points.

This section focuses on the objections of economist Frank Hyneman Knight against the single tax proposal of Henry George. The distrust of extensive government power may have been at the root of Knight's negative position on the single tax. It is possible that Knight regarded George's call for government action to rectify the ethical problem posed by the private appropriation of rent as just another utopian call for social planning. On at least one occasion, he characterized the single tax as socialist confiscation. The heart of the disagreement between Knight and George's supporters is that George's supporters see an important difference between the rent of land and other returns. George's supporters use a system of categories in which an increase in return to a resource that is caused by the effort or abstinence of the owner of the resource is called a return to capital. The rent of a parcel of land is never the product of the effort or abstinence of the person with title to that land; it is produced by a combination of nature, public infrastructure, and private activities on surrounding land. If a person has exclusive access to land of greater value than others can have, he puts his fellow citizens at a disadvantage that deserves rectification, and a good society rectifies this disadvantage by public collection of rent.

This article focuses on the objection of economist Frederich August von Hayek to the single tax proposal of Henry George. This objection constitutes a superficially formidable argument that the defenders of Georgism seem almost wholly to have neglected. The reason for this neglect is probably threefold: First, the argument is readily overlooked, occupying, as it does, a single paragraph in a book of more than 500 pages. Second, it is easily confused with a different argument, one that has been widely, and to the satisfaction of probably all Georgists, conclusively, refuted. Third, it is expressed following a technically inaccurate definition on Hayek's part of the model to which his objection is directed. However, the validity of his objection does not depend upon the accuracy of his definition, and his argument calls for a scholarly rejoinder, not merely in view of its author's towering prestige, but due to the fact that, once disentangled from its flawed context and correctly understood, it seems at first blush compelling on its merits. Theoretically, however, the objection would appear to undercut the system's elegance. The clear division between mine, thine, and ours, which makes the Georgist paradigm so morally appealing, now looks like rhetorical hyperbole.

This article examines the arguments that Robert LeFevre contributed to the criticism of Henry George's stance on land value taxation. LeFevre was a leading intellectual force in the dissemination of libertarian ideas. LeFevre was not entirely univocal in the way he understood George's single-tax proposal. He derived his main interpretation primarily from the following passage from Progress and Poverty by George. Ignoring George's metaphor of the kernel and the shell, and George's insistence that the state would not assume a single new function, LeFevre fixed his attention on the single clause that the state may become the universal landlord. LeFevre reasoned that if the state is to be the universal landlord, then uses of land that involve subleasing, which would include hotels, rooming houses, guest houses, motels, apartment houses, tenant farms, and so on would all either become the monopolies of the state, owned and controlled by the state, or any such type of business venture would be eliminated. LeFevre preceded his statement of his own theory of ownership with a confused passage ostensibly concerning the labor theory of ownership. He started this section with the accusation that perhaps the most fundamental fallacy of the Georgist theory relates to the supposition that the value of anything derives from the element of human labor which is mixed with the product.

Under a Neo-Georgist regime, everybody would pay society for the use of land, according to its market value. Those who own land would pay directly. Those who do not would pay indirectly via their landlords, who would keep a small percentage of the payment as an agency or collection fee. The proceeds would be used for the purpose of general benefit in lieu of taxes on labor and capital. This contrasts with most present systems, in which people who do not own land pay twice, first to the landlord, for the privilege of using the land, and second to the government, for public services. Without neglecting the traditional emphasis on ground rent, Neo-Georgism will also focus on nonground forms of rent that have risen in prominence since the days of Henry George, rent for the electromagnetic spectrum, aircraft landing slots, patent protection, etc. Instrumental to the application of the central thrust of the Neo-Georgist program is the idea that public fiscal burdens be distributed according to the criterion of benefits received from society. The Neo-Georgist will neither claim that land-value taxation should always be the sole source of public revenue, on the one hand, nor see it, as merely a highly desirable source to be employed as one tax among many without discrimination as to their ranking.

The chapter focuses on the study of land value taxation highlighted in the works of economics Professor Harry Gunnison Brown. The American single tax movement has not had large accomplishments either in the way of legislation secured or number of adherents gained for its essential principles. Many economists favored modified versions of the single tax, in particular where it would be applied only to future increments in the value of land. In 1904, Charles Fillebrown circulated a questionnaire to members of the American Economics Association, which stated that it would be sound public policy to make the future increase in ground rent a subject of special taxation. He also was concerned with examining the economic effects of increased land value taxation in order to defend what he perceived as beneficial outcomes and to refute erroneous criticisms. As ethical or philosophical concerns were endemic to the proposed tax reform, he addressed them as well. Normal or long run demand may therefore be said to depend on the utility or desirability of the goods demanded, on the utility or desirability of other goods which have to be sacrificed if these are to be enjoyed, on the disutility or sacrifice of producing the goods necessary to pay for the goods and by way of comparison, on the disutility or sacrifice necessary to produce, instead of buying the goods desired.

The chapter describes the thought and theories of economics professor Harry Gunnison Brown regarding political economy including his general philosophical and political views. Brown today would be considered a conservative, yet he was very much a liberal in the nineteenth century sense of the term. Like many economists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Brown championed causes for economic and social reform. Land value taxation, which became his primary interest, is not classified easily as liberal or conservative. Brown was not specific on the philosophical origins of his views. Evidently they were not religious in nature. Brown rejected the Marxist claim that interest was unearned or a surplus. He straightforwardly argued that capital's existence was due to abstinence or savings and that therefore the interest return was earned just as was the return to labor. Brown was familiar with economists whose thought was later to be labeled institutionalist. Although Brown received several honors in his career, he was never nominated for the presidency of the American Economics Association. The neoclassical approach Brown adopted was not a precisely delimited model. Although he made no signal, original contribution to the theory, his skill in its application allowed him to make many important contributions in several areas of thought.

ABSTRACT. I support ideas based on Henry George's writings but not as utopian. Reducing taxes that impede capital formation actually helps communities prosper. Furthermore, adopting a “two-rate” property tax has always seemed sensible. The academic's role is to point to achievable benefits. Professor Samuels's paper helps us understand how the plurality of aspects and concerns of Georgism has diffused the attention of the Georgists away from a more modest but substantial point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author presents his response to the comments made by an economist on his article "Why the Georgist Movement has not Succeeded." The economist makes the point that Georgist true believers may not recognize Georgist policy successes "because they were not done in his name." The author shares that one thing that this comment brings to his mind is that success might be identified as a situation in which Georgist policy so dominated public finance and was so taken for granted that people no longer thought of it as Georgist. He also emphasizes as the fundamental Georgist concept the proposition that people "have an inalienable right to the product of their own labor." The author points out two circumstances that have rendered this proposition highly problematic. First, the term "product of their own labor" has a rhetorical concreteness that is absent in actual markets. A worker can produce the same physical product but, if demand has fallen or supply risen, the exchange value of each unit of the product will tend to fall. So it is not one's physical product but physical product times product price that matters. Second, although people may sometimes think in terms of what they produce or the value of what they produce, more often they think along two other lines. One line is a major theme of author's paper. However much Georgists have identified land rent/increments in land value as unearned, most people think of their income as earned.

ABSTRACT. The article surveys factors external and internal to the Georgist movement that account for its relative lack of success. Key factors are the identification of income with productivity and the belief in a right to privatize economic rent. The Georgist defense of productive property thus was seen as an attack on property. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. In addition to specifically praising Warren Samuels's investigation into why the single tax has not been generally adopted, this analysis offers additional reasons: it stresses the lack of specific knowledge concerning implementation in the foreseeable future, and also presents the modern ethical and economic case for land-value taxation. That tax is either valid or invalid, quite apart from whether or not it can be “single” (i.e., replacing all other taxes). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chapter 6 of the book “The Purchasing Power of Money" by economists Irving Fisher and Harry Gunnison Brown is presented. It explores the Harry Gunnison Brown contribution in the field of land value taxation. It highlights Brown's role in explaining the economic effects of land value taxation and its economic theory.

The article focuses on land value taxation in the U.S. In this article the author has assumed that most people who attend a lecture named for Henry George are likely to be at least sympathetic to the ideas associated with him. He has not tried to make a positive case for land value taxation, which seemed superfluous. What he has attempted is to deal further with what has always seemed to him a great mystery and why given the virtues of land value taxation, has there been so little success in persuading governments to adopt it. Some years ago, he propounded the notion that at least part of the explanation, as far as United States is concerned, can be found in the strong antipathy among ordinary Americans against taxing unrealized capital gains, which land value taxation does. (The economists see no problem with this, but then they see no case for minimum wages, or for heavy taxation of the income from capital, or for barriers to international trade, or for numerous other things that enjoy wide popular support.) In this article, the author has taken a different tack, addressing what surely is a less emotional cause for reluctance to adopt land value taxation: uncertainty as to how it would really work out in practice in the contemporary world. He has listed what he has seen as the reasonable person's hesitations, in the form of questions that researchers should be able to answer.

The article focuses on land and its taxation. The author says that George Bernard Shaw's magnum opus, "Progress and Poverty," is characterized by the same moral and religious emphasis remarked by Shaw, an emphasis that rises in the final chapter to the noble declaration of a faith revived. So the author thinks its entirely appropriate that he focuses on the moral and religious aspects of his basic proposal for economic reform-his proposal to lift the burden of taxation from the fruits of individual labor, while appropriating for public use the socially-engendered value of the land. For land value taxation is not just a fiscal measure (although it is a fiscal measure, and a sound one); not just a method of urban redevelopment (although it is a method of urban redevelopment, and an effective one); not just a means of stimulating business (although it is a means of stimulating business, and a wholesome one); not just an answer to unemployment (although it is an answer to unemployment, and a powerful one), not just a way to better housing (although it is a way to better housing, and a proven one); not just an approach to rational land use (although it is an approach to rational land use, and a non-bureaucratic one). It is all of these things, but it is also something infinitely more: it is the affirmation, prosaic though it be, of a fundamental spiritual principle-that "the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof."

ABSTRACT. Henry George described his proposal to tax land rent as tantamount to abolition of the private ownership of land. However Pullen's suggestion that it might better be described as "conditional modified or restricted ownership" falls foul of the fact that all ownership is conditional modified or restricted in some sense. Whereas for George the private ownership of labor products may be positively justified on grounds of equity and is subject only to conditions that apply to ownership in general the private ownership of land may be permitted but only on grounds of social utility and only if a radical condition (social appropriation of most of its rent) is met that satisfies the demands of equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kiao-Chau was a German protectorate from 1898 to 1915, located on the Yellow Sea coast of China. It occupied some 200 square miles on the Shantung Peninsula around and including the city of Tsingtao, leased to Germany for one hundred years by the imperial Chinese government. The pleasant climate and scenic setting of Tsingtao made it a natural site for a resort, and with its location at the mouth of Chiao-chou-wan, one of the best naval harbors in northern China. The Germans developed the harbor, constructed a railroad to Tsinan, and built many resort facilities. In 1903, a method of increasing the annual tax on vacant or underdeveloped land was adopted. Land not utilized for the purpose for which it had been purchased from the government was taxed after 1906 at nine percent instead of the usual six percent, with a three percent increase every three years thereafter until an annual tax of 24 percent had been reached. When properly improved, its tax would revert to six percent. The increment resulting from growth and development was applied to the welfare of the whole population of the colony.

From as early as 50 B.C. (the Three Kingdom period), payment of land tax has been one of the basic duties Korean citizens have had to perform, along with military service and service for public works. As is the case for most other countries, land taxes by the central government in Korea are basically imposed on the income stream from the property and the capital gains realized at the time of transaction, while the local property taxes are levied on acquisition and registration, and on ownership. Korea's landholding tax used to be levied at fixed rates on the value of each land parcel. In the late 1980s, a broad consensus emerged that this tax should be increased to deter speculative withholding. Also, as the true dimension of ownership concentration became evident, a heavy tax burden was called for also to discourage large land holdings. While the rationale behind the comprehensive landholding tax is relatively well received by the public, some problems still persist including the argument about the nature of this particular tax, namely that local taxes such as the comprehensive landholding tax should not carry too heavy a national policy objective.

The justice and soundness of the taxation of land rent is acknowledged but problems in assessing imply a need to introduce better methods This is particularly true when attempting to introduce the more saleable idea of two-rate tax systems because the allocation of total value of real estate parcels between land and buildings is even more arbitrarily done than determining the total assessment The ideas fit best at the local level and there is little chance of replacing income or sales taxes A 100% tax would be impossible since it would lead to an avalanche of tax appeals and the abandonment of some land since a high percentage of assessments are in error The idea of a single tax does not fit modern times when revenue needs determine taxes, rather than the amount of revenue collected determining proper or necessary government expenditure levels One tax source may be unpopular and regarded as a dangerous concept Land is probably less important and less relatively valuable than it used to be because of technological change Some advances in social legislation may mitigate the need for the drastic reform, George who was a moralist deeply concerned about poverty, felt reform was needed in his day He was right about the impacts of various taxes on economic activity and income distribution without having a disturbing effect on the nervous system--strengthen the heart action, and tone up the stomach, liver, and kidneys, Dr McBain's Blood Pills--enrich the blood and give excellent results with pale complexion, pain in the back, facial eruptions, nervous headaches, and sores, the magic corset--we guarantee that it will take ten inches off your waistline, will add ten inches to your bust line, and will keep your marriage happy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on a debate over the Single Tax in Canada during the period of 1880 to 1920. The Single Tax proposal, that is, a tax on land value and land value alone, was an attempt to alter society's tax base, The Single Tax movement of Canada as that of the United States, arose in response to the problem of great poverty in the midst of a burgeoning industrialism. Founded by Henry George in the 1880s, the movement attacked land monopoly seeing land speculation and control as the toot of contemporary poverty. Henry George and his followers demanded a Single Tax on land to eliminate the problem. Gradually the movement became a tax reform measure and some of the implications of its underlying philosophy were lost. In Montreal, the Single Tax seemed to have little appeal to labor and none to capital. When it first appeared, the Single Tax was perceived as very radical and, like socialist philosophy, was shunned by the Church and this, in turn, likely affected public perception. In contrast, Toronto's Single Tax movement was Very influential. Philosophically the movement attracted many who saw landlordism as a scourge upon society.

Henry George's land reform ideas became known in Germany not through his writing or speaking but through the efforts of Michael Flürscheim, an industrialist and pioneer social reformer, who first presented those ideas to the public. The American's idea that the land value tax was the only legitimate source of government' revenue as the only economic surplus had found no acceptance among German socialist leaders. It was a capitalist, Flürscheim, who was inspired by George's theories and wrote and spoke about them. Flürschim brought about the foundation of the first German land reform organization. Though it failed, a successor became the largest such association in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Man incentive for development tax abatements for new buildings may be similar to a graduated tax system For macroeconomic reasons, this statement is especially true in the 1980s Unlike a graduated tax system, however, tax abatements for businesses help to offset the pro-housing bias of the Federal income tax [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Henry George was the creator of a distinctive system of political economy which has a rich ethical and social foundation. George's conceptions of the nature of political economy, of value, and of wealth have important implications for the analysis of economic policy. The same is true of his contention that the laws of distribution, no less than those of production, are natural laws. His hope and optimism for a future of freedom and prosperity are as important as his approach to economic analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of land value taxation on housing development are studied in three disparate cities: Pittsburgh, McKeesport, and New Castle, Pennsylvania. These places are examples of three different types of city: central city, suburban city, and relatively isolated city, respectively. Shifting taxes from buildings to land is hypothesized to have different effects in the different types of cities. A liquidity effect, due to increases in the land tax rate, is expected to operate in all three types of cities. An incentive effect, due to decreases in the tax rate on improvements, is expected to function in central cities and, possibly, in relatively isolated cities. It is not expected to be important in suburban cities such as McKeesport. An incentive effect was found in Pittsburgh, but not in the other two cities. No evidence of a liquidity effect was found in any of the three cities. An explanation of why observed effects may not conform with hypotheses is given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While not appreciated by many professional economists during his lifetime despite his appeal to the general public, Henry George (1839-1897) was a self-taught economist whose best work is still surviving. His work is still applauded by economists in their theoretical work especially in the area of site value taxation and rentseeking. However, perhaps the most enduring tribute to the genius of Georgism is in the current application of land value taxation and gradation in several countries around the world including the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The progressive democratic social philosophy of a 19th century American economist, Henry George, has had a far-reaching effect on some European intellectual and political leaders. Not all adopted his practical proposal, the single land value tax as a substitute for other taxes. But the British Liberal party, a section of the British Labor party and Danish smallholders did. George's ideas were absorbed into the long-standing European land reform tradition and he became the initiator and theoretical founder of the modern movement there, as Heinrich Erman, the German legal scholar, held. It is a mistake to say that the French Physiocrats anticipated George; their product net was a tax on output, not highest potential use and was aimed to achieve stability, not development Europeans see George and Georgism the same as Americans but in a different context, that of natural rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Application of the land value tax has been described for many natural resources. However, the problems encountered with flowing under- ground resources have not been fully discussed. Groundwater is one such flowing resource that affects the value of surface land. The underground water is also subject to its own market forces. If a Georgist tax is to be applied to groundwater or to land affected by it, the administrator of the tax must consider the interplay that occurs between the two resource markets. A system of separable property rights to the two resources offers the prospect for efficient use. But the monitoring of ground water use must accompany such a separation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most urban economists and particularly specialists in urban public finance consider the land value tax, because of its economic effects and its influence toward rational development, the tax of choice. But could it replace, in whole or in large part, taxes which now burden labor and capital and distort efficient allocation of resources? How important would a full land rent tax's yield be? The U.S. Bureau of the Census provides data which, adjusted for errors and omissions, indicates that the annual land rent for 1981 was $721 billion. Federal Reserve Board data, similarly adjusted, indicates annual land rent for that year was $590.38 billion. Hence we may say that a full land rent tax would yield something around $658 billion in 1981, or 28 percent of the 1981 national income. This is nearly two-thirds of all taxes levied by all levels of government in 1981, and, with user charges and similar fees continued, it is probably equal or nearly equal to burdensome taxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Land Value Tax, which proposes that governments raise their revenues largely from taxes on the annualized economic rent of land, has been projected into current debate by recent studies and by political debate in at least half a dozen Pennsylvania cities. An effort to measure its effects on building construction and renovation was made by two Pennsylvania economists, E. J. Mathis and C. E. Zech. Under criticism, they granted that their conclusion that there was no evidence that urban development was stimulated was tentative and debatable. The effort was valuable in that it highlighted some of the pitfalls of this kind of research. In this area, researchers must try to avoid mis-specification of variables, wrong choice of flow or stock data, employment of oversimplified economic hypotheses. Public decision makers should be informed about inappropriate model specification and structure, input data deficiencies, and inadequate econometric analysis for urban policy determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Henry George, the 19th century American economist and social philosopher, was recognized as an individualist His Single Tax on the value of land and all natural resources would socialize the rent while preserving private ownership and use. His positions on industrial monopolies were not so clear. He urged the abolition of all special privileges but did not see clearly that this would end many such monopolies. He understated the effects of the single land value tax and the abolition of special privileges; they would go a long way toward ending all industrial monopolies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban economists tend to agree that land value taxation is both equitable and efficient. Then why won't American urban areas reform their property taxes into a land value tax? One explanation may be that the climate of opinion is that the taxation of wealth is wrong. This may be another of the legacies of the Great Depression. In the 20 years preceding, levels of property taxation increased very substantially; this was associated with rapid urbanization and big increases in public expenditures. Even with the collapse of property values urban governments extended expenditures and hence taxes on real property-as they did again with inflation in the 1970s. But in the 70s residents were predominantly owner-occupants-a result of counter- depression policy. Their hostility to taxing unrealized capital gains is the obstacle advocates of land value taxation have to overcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Site value taxation is neither a new nor a strictly western concept. Taxing land based on location was proposed in India around 300 B.C. François Quesnay, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill were among the economists favoring land taxes but Henry George is credited with bringing it about in several areas, notably Australia. That subcontinent has experimented with the land tax on the national as well as the state and local levels but it is presently used only on the latter two. Empirical tests of the tax instrument are few. Pollock and Shoup (1977) forecast that eliminating the tax on improvements would increase investment levels by about 25 per cent in the long rim. Hutchinson (1963) found great differences in house values and stocks. This study evaluates the effects of site value taxation on the basis of multivariate regression analysis. It finds strong evidence that, where improvements are relieved of taxation and more revenues are obtained from land values, the average value of housing is significantly higher and the value of the housing stock substantially larger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although appealing on the consideration of efficiency, the site (land) value tax has been dismissed by some economists as an unviable alternative to the local real estate tax on the ground that it cannot generate sufficient revenue. From earlier work based on a general equilibrium model, however, a switch from a real estate to an equal yield site value tax could result in an increase in equilibrium land prices (and hence the site value tax base). In particular, equilibrium land prices will rise with a site value relative to a real estate tax if: [This equation cannot be represented in ASCII Text.]. Critical to that theoretical result are the magnitudes of several parameters including the percent land constitutes of total real estate value, [This equation cannot be represented in ASCII Text.], the elasticity of substitution, sx, the elasticity of demand for real estate ex, and the output elasticities, fk and fx. Based on recent empirical estimates of those parameters, the above stated condition holds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent writers have challenged the traditional view that a tax on site value is neutral, but there is still disagreement as to the effects of the tax. The site value tax affects the timing of land development in. that it provides an incentive for landowners to develop land sooner than under a property tax levied on improvements also. Confusion has resulted from a failure to distinguish market value from development value. The incidence of the site value tax must take into account the dynamics of untaxing capital and of the capitalization of the tax increase on land values, as well as of the resulting increase of land supply and its effect in further reducing land values. The increased profitability of capital improvements could then increase land rent from the demand side. Obviously, amidst such dynamic changes, the overall effect on land values and rents is unsettled pending further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land value taxation (LVT) as desirable U.S. tax policy was brilliantly set forth by the American publicist and economist, Henry George, in the book Progress and Poverty, published 100 years ago. Economists concerned with state and local taxation have generally accepted the basic elements of George's analysis. The absence of substantial LVT legislation despite the economic efficiency and ethical strengths of land as a tax base arises from two sources. First, the public perception of land has not separated land's attributes from those possessed by other property. Second, land ownership data have not been gathered and publicized. Groups favoring taxes that promote economic justice and efficiency should support efforts to develop land ownership data. It would be an important first step toward fully utilizing the potential of LVT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]