Seeing What's There
One afternoon, back in the days of the great bloom of New York City
panhandling in the early 90s, I made the by-then reflexive plunge into my
pocket, and found nothing but a twenty-dollar bill. I explained to the
beggar that the twenty was all I had, and I couldn't afford to give it to
him. A conversation ensued, which, the guy told me, meant a lot more to him
than the money. "When so many people walk by and don't seem to see you," he
said, "you start to wonder if you might really not be here."
I often think of that moment as I ponder the plight of the Georgists.
Having been given the responsibility of acquainting the world with a
radically important insight, they go out and find that people simply cannot
see them or, if they can, they refuse to admit it!
That makes the Georgists sound rather pathetic. But, despite their lack of
honor in their own country, I'd suggest that the Georgists are not the most
pathetic players in the field of political economy. True, they lack
sophisticated training, popular support and institutional funding.
Nevertheless, Georgists can accomplish one thing that most of today's
credentialed economists have a great deal of trouble with: they can discern
the obvious.
A highly-skilled stage magician can make something huge -- the Statue of
Liberty, say -- seem to disappear. Yet if that magician were to actually start
to believe in his own smoke and mirrors -- if he actually expected the
statue to be gone -- our feelings about his performance would shift from
awe to pity. Modern economics has performed the astounding trick of making
land -- the natural materials and opportunities from which wealth comes --
disappear from economic analysis. Yet, alas, many have come to believe in
their own illusion.
If you had never thought about land as a separate factor, of course, then
its absence from all manner of economic consideration wouldn't ring any
bells. People have been trained to ignore the meaning of land -- and ignore
it they do. From the op-ed pages to the college textbooks, the blanket
assumption is that the private ownership and capital-ization of land is
just the Way of Things; it's how modern economies work. If we didn't have
it, why, we'd be left with either a Traditional Economy, or Socialism. Just
really not thinkable.
This has profound consequences. Here are just a few examples -- no doubt the
reader can think of more. If fee-simple land ownership is sacrosanct, then:
Keynes was right. The boom/bust cycle is a permanent feature of the
"modern" economy, which can only be managed by ever-increasing governmental
management of fiscal and monetary policy, and the corruption that stems
from that is just an unfortunate by-product. Inflation will always overheat
before all the willing and able workers can find jobs; taxation will always
place a dead weight on production. Real estate speculators have every right
to enjoy the appreciation of their assets as GDP grows and workers become
more productive; it's their due, fair pay for entrepreneurial acumen.
Marx was right. There is an inherent structural tendency within the
"capitalist" system for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.
Labor's gains via legislation or collective bargaining will always tend to
erode, as real wages inexorably drop. Those at the top will resort to
ever-more-drastic repressive measures to keep disgruntled workers in line.
As the inefficiencies and dead weights of the system grow, regimes will
resort to imperialistic wars to secure markets, resources and profit margins.
There really is a global "race to the bottom". Nothing can be done to
provide better opportunities for poor workers in developing countries. They
need the work -- at whatever pay the multinationals are willing to give
them. If nations want to develop at all, they have to play by the rules of
the WTO and the IMF. Land barons in those nations have no incentive to let
go of their holdings to give workers better options, and none has any right
to make them do so.
George W. Bush was right. Terrorism will continue to be on the rise. People
who resent our advantages and hate what we stand for will become
increasingly desperate and dangerous, and we must do what's necessary to
protect ourselves, even if it means sacrificing some of our Constitutional
freedoms. Our very way of life depends on control over the last abundant,
easily-accessed sources of oil.
At one time, slavery was deemed a sensible, sound practice; the Bible
condones it. At one time, it was taken for granted that women had no rights
beyond what their fathers and husbands whose property they were chose to
grant them. Yet, through the long years when such backward practices held
sway, there were always thoughtful individuals who saw the denial of basic
human rights for what it was, despite society's apparent blindness. The
most basic right of all is that of life itself -- yet, if fee-simple land
ownership is sacrosanct, then we are obliged to pay a landowner for access
to the natural resources that we must have in order to live. A hundred and
twenty six years ago, Henry George thundered, "Private property in land is
a bold, bare, enormous wrong, like to chattel slavery." Most people still
have not been inclined, or had the chance, to stop and think about the
truth of those words -- but they will.
-------------------
Lindy Davies is the Program Director of the Henry George Institute.
Malthus was right. The poor will indeed be with us always -- and they will
always breed with unsustainable rapidity. Widespread improvements in living
standards, which bring about a sensible drop in fertility, will not spread
beyond their current enclaves in the industrial nations of the north. The
urbanization of the poor south will continue, and misery will grow. Poor
people keep being born, and there just isn't enough land to go around.
Transnational corporations have every right to retain their vast holdings,
on which they pay local peasants starvation wages to grow crops for export.
Fortunately for us all, the fee-simple ownership of land need not be
sacrosanct. There is an alternative that is not only viable but infinitely
preferable. The replacement of burdensome, invasive taxes with public
collection of rent would confer a smorgasbord of benefits on society,
within the overall structure of a free-market economy. Many things that
seem inconceivable now would become not only possible but actually profitable!
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