Editorial note

On September 5, 1890, at the summer meeting of the American Social Science Association in Saratoga, New York, the single tax received its first formal hearing before the organized American economics profession. The debate had been arranged, while Henry George was abroad, by the acting secretary John Graham Brooks; George returned in time to take part in person. Five speakers argued the affirmative (S. B. Clarke, Louis F. Post, William Lloyd Garrison, James R. Carret, and George himself) and six the negative — among them E. R. A. Seligman of Columbia, John B. Clark of Smith College, Edward Atkinson, W. T. Harris, and President E. Benjamin Andrews of Brown. The papers and floor debate were published in full as No. XXVII of the Association's Journal of Social Science (F. B. Sanborn, ed.).

This page carries the core George–Seligman exchange — the confrontation the Saratoga event page treats as the moment the George-versus-academy battle line was drawn. It reproduces three of the session's thirteen pieces in their published order:

1. Seligman's opening address (session item 6, pp. 34–44), which grants that a tax on economic rent falls on the owner — "Henry George is… substantially right in maintaining, with Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Mill, that a tax on land values… will fall wholly on the owner" — and then argues the single tax violates the canons of universality and equality, and impales it on a compensation/confiscation dilemma.
2. George's consolidated remarks (item 9, pp. 73–86), his reply from the floor — including exchanges with Edward Atkinson — denying that compensation is owed or practicable, distinguishing land from the products of labor, and answering the "why tax only land?" objection.
3. Seligman's reply (item 10, pp. 87–98), delivered the same evening, defending the professoriate against George's charge of hypocrisy and pressing the incidence, capitalization, and "ability to pay" arguments against him.

What is omitted. The full Journal of Social Science No. XXVII prints the entire session (pp. 1–124, roughly 55,000 words); this page reproduces only the ~18,000-word George–Seligman core. The ten other pieces — available in the linked source — are: S. B. Clarke, What the Single Tax Is (pp. 1–7); Thomas Davidson, The Single Tax (pp. 8–14); William Lloyd Garrison, Remarks (pp. 15–20); John B. Clark, The Moral Basis of Property in Land (pp. 21–28 — the natural-rights confrontation the event page also foregrounds); President E. Benjamin Andrews, Single Land Tax and Public Finance (pp. 29–33); Louis F. Post, Address (pp. 45–54); Edward Atkinson, Remarks (pp. 55–72); James R. Carret, Remarks (pp. 99–112); W. T. Harris, The Single Tax (pp. 113–121); and Edward Atkinson, Final Remarks (pp. 122–124). Professor E. J. James's extempore remarks (referred to by George below) were, by the editor's note, not taken down and do not appear in the source.

Public-domain status: published 1890 in the United States; George died 1897, Seligman 1939. Long out of copyright under the US 95-year rule; reproduced below from the fields it covers. Section titles are the source's own; text within each section is the speaker's.

The Text

Address of Professor Edwin R. A. Seligman

of Columbia College, New York

In this discussion of the single tax on land, it may be well to turn our attention to some points commonly overlooked. I shall not discuss the adequacy of the tax, although there is grave doubt on that point. I shall not discuss the political feasibility of the tax, nor the marvellous short-sightedness of those who are Utopian enough to believe that the federal indirect taxes will ever be totally abolished. I shall not discuss the real social basis of the tax, — the idea that with the imposition of the single tax all poverty and suffering will disappear, and the millennium of economic felicity come to hand. I shall not discuss the history of the single tax, although perhaps just a word on this subject would not be out of place here.

It has unfortunately been asserted by some of the opponents of Mr. George that Turgot introduced the single tax into France. This is a gross mistake. All students of economics know that the Physiocrats had three cardinal doctrines: (1) natural law and laissez faire; (2) the sole productivity of land; and (3) the single tax on land. Some of the leaders, like Gournay, emphasized the first point; others, like Quesnay, the last. Now, Turgot was a follower of Gournay, and nowhere in his political career did he lay any stress on the single tax. His celebrated six edicts in 1774 relate to entirely different matters. The only practical effort ever made by the Physiocrats was that of Dupont de Nemours in the Assembly, when all indirect taxes were abolished for a time. But the single tax was never introduced. On the other hand, it is a fact, perhaps unknown to most of those present, that a serious attempt was made in another country to naturalize the single tax. Margrave Charles Frederick of Baden was a devoted student and follower of Quesnay, and decided to put his ideas into practice. He chose three little towns in his domain,— Dietlingen, Theningen, and Balingen,— and during the seventies abolished all taxes, replacing them with a single tax on land. The experiment with this impôt unique lasted only a few years. It produced such dire distress among the farmers and peasant owners, such shameless exemption of all other classes, as almost to cause an uprising; and it was ingloriously abolished, never to be renewed. So much for the only practical realization of the single tax.

But, as I have said, I do not wish to discuss its history to-day. I desire to say only a few words as to the problem in its relation to the general science of finance, which is with us almost an untrodden field. The expositions of Adam Smith and Ricardo are fragmentary and inadequate. Even J. S. Mill devoted only a few pages to it. To-day even, in English there is not a single comprehensive work on finance. No wonder that principles of taxation should be so little understood.

Let us test the single tax in the light of certain fundamental principles. Three of the chief principles in taxation are universality, equality, and justice.

If anything was gained by the French Revolution and the increasing conscience of modern nations, it is a recognition of the fact that all owe a duty to support the State; that a system of wholesale exemptions is an iniquitous one; and that all taxpayers, within a certain class, should be treated uniformly according to the same standard. In other words, universality and equality of taxation represent the hard earned victory of modern over mediaeval ideas. In this country we have of late been favored with two plans of taxation which, although utterly dissimilar, have usually been confounded by most people. One is the project of Mr. Isaac Sherman, to lay all State and local taxes at least on real estate. But this plan was based on the argument that the tax would be diffused throughout the community because it would fall on the consumers; and, as every one is a consumer, all would in reality be bearing their share of the burden. Now, it is remarkable that what constituted the chief merit of the tax in the eyes of this party should be regarded in precisely the opposite way by the advocates of the second plan, the single tax on land values. Mr. Isaac Sherman said the tax on real estate falls only nominally on the owners but is shifted on the consumers, and is therefore to be recommended. Henry George says the tax on land values will stay where it is put, on the land-owner, and is to be recommended precisely because it will not be shifted on the consumers. You see the fundamental difference between the two theories.

This is not the place to enter into a discussion of Mr. Sherman’s plan. Real estate includes not only land, but the fixtures thereto, like houses, machinery, and, in some States at least, such seemingly different elements as the rolling stock of railroad corporations. A real estate tax is thus in reality composed of a number of very diverse taxes, and the incidence of each tax is governed by entirely distinct laws. Without entering into any detailed proof, I may say that Mr. Sherman’s alleged general diffusion of such a complex tax is a mere chimera. Henry George is therefore substantially right in maintaining, with Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Mill, that a tax on land values — i.e., a tax on economic rent — will fall wholly on the owner. I say substantially, because some refinements of the doctrine of Ricardo, which is accepted by Mr. George, have lately been developed by students of finance which show that in certain conditions the tax on city ground rents may in part be shifted on to the consumer, that is, the occupier, the tenant.

But, granting the substantial accuracy of George’s position, what is the result? Simply, that whole classes of the community will be entirely exempt from taxes,— will go absolutely scot-free, — and that one class will bear the burdens for all the rest. In other words, we shall be in a far worse condition than in mediaeval France; for there at least there was never such a wholesale infraction of the laws of universality and equality of taxation. Reflect a moment on what this means. The criticisms directed against our American system of the general property tax are true enough, in so far as they show the utter failure of our law to reach personal property. Owners of the large fortunes invested, not in realty, but in business or securities, and all those that derive incomes from other sources than real estate, are gradually escaping taxation. Now, while there may be some dispute as to whether in our day the mass of personal property exceeds that of real estate, there can be no possible questioning of the fact that the fraction of real estate which is represented by land is far less in value than the combination of houses, machinery, fixtures, and all the other capital and consumable goods known as personal property. That is, land alone is only a smaller proportion of the total national wealth. Is it then not a violation of the most fundamental principles to make a small minority bear not only its own share of taxes, but also the share of the large majority who go entirely free?

The advocate of the single tax must take one of two positions. The first is this. It may be maintained that the tax will not fall on future owners or purchasers of the land, on the principle that a partial tax on any property or income —a tax on a single kind of property or income to the exclusion of all other kinds of property —will result in a depreciation of the value of the property tantamount to a capitalization of the tax. Suppose, for example, that only one class of corporations is taxed. Before the tax was imposed, it was paying, let us say, 5 per cent. dividends on its stock quoted at par. Now, if a tax of 10 per cent. be imposed on the dividends, the stockholder will get only 4½ per cent. But, as all other classes of corporations are untaxed, and the profits on other investments have remained the same, the price of this particular corporation stock will inevitably fall, ceteris paribus, to 90. People who can get 5 per cent. on their capital will not ordinarily consent to take 4½ per cent. The new purchaser who buys at 90 will therefore virtually escape taxation, because the amount of the tax has been discounted in the depreciation of the security. The original holder, however, will lose doubly,— once in his decreased dividend, and again in the depreciation of his capital invested in the shares. If, now, we apply the same argument to the single tax, 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. During these successive stages, however, the new purchasers lose nothing. The diminished rent will still yield them the same rate of interest as before, because of the diminished capital value on which the interest is computed. The total loss thus will fall entirely on the original owner or the holder before the partial tax was imposed. They will lose both in the increased taxes and in the decreased value of their land. Now, the State has plainly no right to tax this particular small class of present owners to the exclusion of all others. If we remember the facility of land transfer in the United States, and if we would take the trouble to look up the real estate records, we should find that the great majority of plots of land owned to-day have been purchased within a very recent period, and that the whole preceding “unearned increment” has been capitalized into the swollen selling value of the land.

If the single tax be imposed, it would be necessary to compensate the existing owners; that is, in case the whole rent be taken, to pay them the whole capital value of the land. Any other plan would be sheer confiscation. As J. S. Mill has said: ““Except the proposal of applying a sponge to the national debt, no such palpable violation of common honesty has ever found support in this country. Should the scheme ever enlist a large party in its support, the fact would indicate a laxity of pecuniary integrity in national affairs scarcely inferior to American repudiation.” Mr. Mill desired to make the tax applicable only to future unearned increment, which, of course, is the only honest method, the only possible method in a community so tenacious of vested interests as the United States. But, if the State must compensate the owners,— must buy out the land at its present value,— it is plain that little will be gained; for the interest which the State must pay on the debt incurred for this land-purchase scheme will obviously be equal to the total tax on land values. What the government receives in the way of economic rent it must pay as interest on its land-purchase bonds. The tax on land values will therefore not go to defray the other governmental expense at all; and it will be only with the slow increase of future land values that the tax will begin to be of any use to the government, although always for this reason miserably inadequate.

This is the first horn of the dilemma. The other is this. If it be argued that the tax does not fall exclusively on present owners, but also on future holders or purchasers of land, then the tax stands equally convicted. A and B each have $100,000. A invests his money in land, B in railroad bonds. What a gross perversion of the first principles of equality is it to make A pay all the taxes and B none! For the argument that the railroad pays taxes on its land, and that B indirectly is reached, is not valid. The tax would not hit B even if he were a shareholder (for reasons which will be found fully explained in a forthcoming article by me on the incidence of the tax on corporations*); and it will certainly not hit B as bondholder, because his interest on the mortgage bonds is a fixed percentage, entirely irrespective of taxation of the corporation. He will get his 4 or 5 per cent. at any rate, no matter what taxes the railroad pays. The advocates of the single tax base their argument on the assumption that our land-owners have owned the land immemorially. They forget that most of the land—at all events, the valuable land in large cities — has been purchased at fair cash values within recent periods. And, if it be maintained that the land of A will in-

• Political Science Quarterly, December, 1890.

crease in value without any labor on his part, it may be equally maintained that, with the inevitable falling of the rate of interest and the increased prosperity of the railroad, due to increase of population and wealth, the value of the railroad bond is bound to appreciate. The railroad may be mismanaged, it is true, and the value of the bond decline; but so also may the value of the land, owing to a change in fashion or a decrease of municipal prosperity. But both cases are abnormal. The value of a railroad bond is bound to increase with the prosperity of the country, and the owner will have this unearned increment. But, even granting that there were no unearned increment in railroad or other bonds, what shadow of justifiability is there in laying all the taxes on A, who has paid full value for his land, and who has not yet, and will not for several years, enjoy any unearned increment on the value that he has paid? Even if we accept the fundamental basis of Mr. George’s reasoning, we could lay the single tax only on those who have enjoyed some unearned increment; and we should have to exempt from taxation the whole amount paid for the land by existing owners; and the tax would then of course become a farce.

These, then, are the two horns of the dilemma. If the tax falls only on present, and not on future owners of land, the State, unless it were willing to indulge in outright confiscation of what has been paid for in cash value, must compensate the owner and thus render the tax utterly nugatory. If the tax falls also on future holders, it will be imposing a most unequal burden on all that land whose successive unearned increment has been capitalized into an appreciation of the capital value for which the land has been bought. What has been conceived in the spirit of equality would result in the most shameless exemption of whole classes of the community. Since the tax cannot possibly be shifted on to the consumers we should have a violation of the principles of universality and equality such as has never been dreamed of before in civilized society.

We come now to the most important theoretic objection to the single tax,— an objection that we can best discuss in connection with the principle of justice in taxation. The fundamental basis of the single tax argument is the contention that individuals should contribute to the burdens of the State in proportion to the peculiar advantages which they receive. Mr. George, in the July Century, gives us the picture of a large apartment house where each tenant pays rent in proportion to the conveniences that he enjoys, whether in location, light, size, or other qualities of his apartment; and he likens the tax-payer to the tenant of this huge edifice. Now, this is an old, old idea, and I may say a long exploded idea in the history of finance. The question is this: What is the basis and what the test of taxation,— the principle of benefits or the principle of ability? What Mr. George so eloquently describes is what is known in finance as the principle of advantages or benefits. The argument has really two branches: (1) as to the basis of taxation; (2) as to the norm, or standard, of taxation.

(1) As to the basis of taxation. Why has the State a right to tax us? A century ago, when the Physiocrats wrote, and when the absolutisms of Central Europe loaded down their subjects with grievous burdens, and devoted the proceeds to their own petty pleasures,—in France the peasant was taxable à merci et miséricorde of the noblesse,— it was natural that a school should rise to protest, and to proclaim the principle of benefits. We pay the State, said this school of excessive individualists, because the State protects us. We pay to the State because the State benefits us, with the implicit deduction, of course, that if the State did not benefit the individual the latter should not be held to pay anything. This is the argument known variously as the quid pro quo argument, the “price for protection” argument, the “give and take” argument, and the “social dividend” argument,—the latter from the contention of Thiers, that the State was like a huge corporation or insurance company, where the members paid premiums only as they received returns or dividends. Now, this benefits argument, which at the beginning of the century was the dominant one and which to-day yet figures extensively in the decisions of some of our courts, has been totally and unconditionally rejected by the political economists of the last fifty years. The reason that we pay taxes is not because the State protects us or because we get any benefits from the State, but simply because the State is a part of us. The duty of supporting and protecting it is born with us. The State in civilized society is as much a necessity to the individual as the air he breathes. He cannot live beyond the State, unless he reverts to stateless savagery and anarchy. His every action is conditioned by the fact of the State. He does not choose the State, but is born into it. It is interwoven with every fibre of his existence; and, in the last resort, he gives to the State, if need be, his very life. To say that he supports the State only because the State benefits him is the most shallow and selfish of doctrines. It is sufficient for those self-complacent individualists who see in the State nothing but the night-watchman of society; but it is sufficient only for these. As soon as our political science rises to the dignified and worthy conception of the State, just so soon does the quid pro quo, the protection or benefit theory, fall to the ground; and all modern theory has accepted the new version as the only true one. We pay taxes not because we get benefits from the State but because it is as much our duty to support the State as to support ourselves or our family, because, in short, the State is an integral part of us.

But, granting now that the principle of benefits is not the reason of taxation, we come to the second part of the problem, namely: (2) Is the principle of benefits the measure of taxation? Ought we to pay our taxes according to the amount of benefits we receive? Those who, like Mr. George, answer in the affirmative are guilty of a confusion of thought and ignorant of the history of the science of finance.

All State revenues may be divided into three great classes,— (1) from the ownership or management of State property, (2) from various lucrative prerogatives, (3) from compulsory contributions. These compulsory contributions may be subdivided into three great classes,—(1) fees or tolls, (2) assessments, (3) taxes. Now, fees and assessments are indeed paid in accordance with the principle of benefits. Take the case of fees. I demand the service of the sheriff, and pay a fee, and rightfully so, because I put him to an extra expense for my sake. I demand a marriage license, and pay a fee because it benefits me individually. I travel over a toll-road and pay a fee or toll because I and other wagon-owners put the district to an expense and derive special benefit from its existence. Take again the case of what is known as a special assessment. A sewer is put through my street. It is right that I should pay a portion of the expense because my property will receive a special benefit from it. A new road is laid out or a new park constructed before my lot. It is right that I should pay toward it because my property is peculiarly benefited by it. In both these large classes of cases, whic in the science of finance are called fees and assessments (Adam Smith called them particular contributions), the ruling principle is, and should be, that of benefits conferred.

But when we come to the department of taxes we come to an

‘.., entirely different domain. Taxes are wholly distinct from both fees and assessments. A tax is not paid for any particular service, otherwise it would be a fee, and not a tax; nor is a tax paid for an action which will benefit me more than the rest of the community in general, for then it would be a special assessment, and not a tax. A tax is paid as a forced contribution to the general

“public needs of the commonwealth. Every one is equally interested in the State, because he cannot exist without the State. The principle of contribution becomes shifted from that of benefits to that of ability, of faculty, of capacity. Every man now must support the State to the full extent, if need be, of his ability to pay. He does not measure the benefits of State action to himself: first, because the benefits are quantitatively immeasurable; and, secondly, because, if he is a patriot, he considers not the welfare of himself, but of the community at large, and he contributes to this general welfare, not in proportion to any share of personal aggrandizement, but in accordance with the elevated ethical conception of relative ability.

This, then, is the grand line of demarcation which separates taxes from fees and assessments. This is the reason why taxes are always the latest historical growth of State revenues. This is the reason why, in any line of governmental action, you can trace the development of the principle of benefits into the principle of ability. Take the common highways. At first, the highway is in the hands of a robber baron who exacts from the unfortunate passer-by what he chooses. In the next phase the highway is in the hands of the community; but every traveller is compelled to pay a toll in accordance with the presumed value of this service, — the heavy coach more than the light one, the equestrian more than the foot passenger. That is the principle of benefits. Finally, the advantages of the high road are deemed so important to the whole community that the tolls are abolished, and the expenses are borne by all the citizens,— not alone by those who derive a peculiar benefit, but by all. The principle changes from fees to taxes, the theory from that of benefits to that of ability. So the canals were formerly in the hands of feudal nobles, then supported by tolls by those using them, then finally free to all and maintained by taxes.

And so historically with every other department of government. The principle of benefits is everywhere discarded with the growth of the commonwealth. The tenant in Henry George’s huge apartment house pays not taxes, but fees. He chooses his apartment, demands and expects only a particular service, and pays only for that service. But the citizen of a modern State is different. In so far as he demands particular services, he pays his particular fees. But, in so far as he is born into the State, he is bound to support it to the best of his ability. Of course, if he is in a worse position than his neighbor, he will pay less taxes. But he will pay less taxes, not because he gets less benefits than his neighbor, but because he cannot afford to pay as much,— because, in short, his ability is less. ~ The principle of benefits, moreover, would lead us into the great(est absurdities. If we accept it, we must apply it logically. We must not restrict its beneficent workings only to the land-owner. One of the greatest benefits conferred by the State is that of protection. Now, the poor man is more protected in proportion than the rich. The Hudson River Railroad Company in its late strike was able to hire Pinkerton detectives to protect it. The poor man can hire no one, but must depend entirely on the State. According to this theory of benefits, then, the poor man must be taxed more than the rich. In truth, the benefits conferred by State action are quantitatively immeasurable. How can an individual measure the particular value to him of the schools, of the courts, of the police? To say that the benefits must be restricted to the unearned increment is wholly arbitrary, for that is only one of the benefits. And, even if we select unearned increment as the test of benefits, why restrict it to the unearned increment of land? Why is not the fortunate owner of railroad bonds, or of books or pictures, or the manager of a successful pool or ring or corner in produce, equally liable to pay for the unearned increment which the mere action of society has added to the value of his possessions? The principle of benefits or advantages, even if accepted as the measure of taxation, would not by any means result in the single tax. But, as we have seen, it cannot be accepted as the measure of taxation. Ability, faculty, not benefit, is the test and standard of justice in taxation. All great writers in finance accept this principle; and he who would again go back to the principle of benefits is guilty of a confusion of thought and ignorant of the history of the science he wishes to expound. The problem of modern taxation is to define the constituent elements of this relative ability. It is the corner-stone on which the whole system of taxation must rest. But it is safe to say that

A land rent is no satisfactory index of this ability. The subject of taxation is a far more delicate one than is dreamed of by those

‘enthusiasts who would trample rough-shod over all existing institutions, and make /fadula rasa. The naive idea that the wants of a modern State may be supplied by a single tax is not a new one. In the middle of the eighteenth century there was a great single tax party in England, but its motto was a single tax on houses. In this century we have had enthusiasts for the single tax on expense, and in different parts of the Continent numerous votaries of the single tax on income; and at different times in the history of the world we have had the single tax on property. But the advocates of all these measures have been men without thorough training in economics, without a conception of the necessary com‘plication of all modern revenue systems. There are to-day economists, worthy of the name, who are protectionists; there are economists, justly so called, who are socialists; but throughout the wide world to-day there is not a single man with a thorough training in the history of economics, or an acquaintance with the science of finance, who is an advocate of the single tax on land values. In biology, in astronomy, in metaphysics, we bow down before the specialist; but every man whose knowledge of economics or the science of finance is derived from the daily papers, or one or two books with lop-sided ideas, thinks that he is a fullfledged scientist, able to instruct the closest student of the markets or of the political and social organism.

Our system of taxation is far from ‘being an ideal or even an approximately just system. We are still clinging in a great degree to medizval errors. But, whatever be the much needed reform, it is safe to say that neither the American people nor the scientific student of finance will ever accept a scheme which is palpably unjust, which is either recklessly dishonest or irretrievably unequal, which consciously abandons the whole ideal theory of modern taxation,— that of relative ability or faculty,— and which seeks to put the burdens of the many on the shoulders of the few.

THE SINGLE TAX PLATFORM.

ADOPTED BY THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE SINGLE TAX LEAGUE OF THE UNITED STATES AT COOPER UNION, NEW YORK, SEPT. 3, 1890.

[At this stage of the discussion, it seems proper to print the official declaration of the Single Tax League of the United States, adopted at New York in national conference, two days before the debate at Saratoga. This document may serve to correct any misunderstanding of the propositions laid down by Mr. George and his friends at Saratoga. |

We assert as our fundamental principle the self-evident truth enunciated in the Declaration of American Independence, that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

We hold that all men are equally entitled to the use and enjoyment of what God has created and of what is gained by the general growth and improvement of the community of which they are apart. Therefore, no one should be permitted to hold natural opportunities without a fair return to all for any special privilege thus accorded to him, and that value which the growth and improvement of the community attach to land should be taken for the use of the community.

We hold that each man is entitled to what he produces. Therefore, no tax should be levied on the products of labor.

To carry out these principles, we are in favor of raising all public revenues for national, State, county, and municipal purposes by a single tax upon land values, irrespective of improvements, and of the abolition of all forms of direct and indirect taxation.

Since in all our States we now levy some tax on the value of land, the single tax can be instituted by the simple and easy way of abolishing, one after another, all other taxes now levied, and commensurately increasing the tax on land values, until we draw upon that one source for all expenses of government, the revenue being divided between local governments, State governments, and the general government, as the revenue from direct taxes is now divided between the local and State governments; or a direct assessment being made by the general government upon the States, and paid by them from revenues collected in this manner.

The single tax we propose is not a tax on land, and therefore would not fall on the use of land and become a tax on labor.

It is a tax, not on land, but on the value of land. Thus it would not fall on all land, but only on valuable land, and on that not in proportion to the use made of it, but in proportion to its value,— the premium which the user of land must pay to the owner, either in purchase money or rent, for permission to use valuable land. It would thus be a tax not on the use or improvement of land, but on the ownership of land, taking what would otherwise go to the owner as owner, and not as user.

In assessments under the single tax all values created by individual use or improvement would be excluded, and the only value taken into consideration would be the value attaching to the bare land by reason of neighborhood, etc., to be determined by impartial periodical assessments. ‘Thus the farmer would.have no more taxes to pay than the speculator who held a similar piece of land idle, and the man who on a city lot erected a valuable building would be taxed no more than the man who held a similar lot vacant.

The single tax, in short, would call upon men to contribute to the public revenues, not in proportion to what they produce or accumulate, but in proportion to the value of the natural opportunities they hold. It would compel them to pay just as much for holding land idle as for putting it to its fullest use.

The single tax, therefore, would —

1. Take the weight of taxation off of the agricultural districts where land has little or no value irrespective of improvements, and put it on towns and cities where bare land rises to a value of millions of dollars per acre.
2. Dispense with a multiplicity of taxes and a horde of tax-gatherers, simplify government, and greatly reduce its cost.
3. Do away with the fraud, corruption, and gross inequality inseparable from our present methods of taxation, which allow the rich to escape, while they grind the poor. Land cannot be hid or carried off, and its value can be ascertained with greater ease and certainty than any other.
4. Give us with all the world as perfect freedom of trade as now exists between the States of our Union, thus enabling our people to share, through free exchanges, in all the advantages which nature has given to other countries, or which the peculiar skill of other peoples has enabled them to attain. It would destroy the trusts, monopolies, and corruptions which are the outgrowths of the tariff. It would do away with the fines and penalties now levied on any one who improves a farm, erects a house, builds a machine, or in any way adds to the general stock of wealth. It would leave every one free to apply labor or expend capital in production or exchange without fine or restriction, and would leave to each the full product of his exertion.
5. It would, on the other hand, by taking for public use that value which attaches to land by reason of the growth and improvement of the community, make the holding of land unprofitable to the mere owner, and profitable only to the user. It would thus

THE NEW YORK SINGLE TAX PLATFORM 47 make it impossible for speculators and monopolists to hold natural opportunities unused or only half used, and would throw open to labor the illimitable field of employment which the earth offers to man. It would thus solve the labor problem, do away with involuntary poverty, raise wages in all occupations to the full earnings of labor, make overproduction impossible until all human wants are satisfied, render labor-saving inventions a blessing to all, and cause such an enormous production and such an equitable distribution of wealth as would give to all comfort, leisure, and participation in the advantages of an advancing civilization.

With respect to monopolies other than the monopoly of land, we hold that where free competition becomes impossible, as in telegraphs, railroads, water and gas supplies, etc., such business becomes a proper social function, which should be controlled and managed by and for the whole people concerned, through their proper government, local, State, or national, as may be.

Remarks of Henry George

I have listened with pleasure to the brief address of Professor James. So far as I can gather from it, the only thing that keeps him from being a single tax man is the idea that we propose to institute the single tax immediately; for I think he will agree with us that whether economic rent be more or less does not affect the main question. If it be not enough to support present public expenses, we can at least take it as far as it goes, either reducing our expenses to that point or supplying the deficiency in some other way. If it be more, I think he will agree with us that with the growing needs of society there will be no difficulty in finding good use for it.

I wish you gentlemen who oppose the single tax would come together and settle among yourselves what the proper answer to our arguments is. For no one can listen to the objections that have been made without seeing how largely they cancel each other, and I am satisfied that, if you were only to fight it out among yourselves, there would be no objection left for us to meet. But, as I have been asked to reply to the objections that have been made, I will confine myself to a few of the more important. In the first place, to select that which I think lies at the root of nearly, if not all, other objections, let me speak of the matter of compensation.

Professor Seligman, in his address, admitted substantially the principal things for which we contend, but urged mainly this objection: that, to carry out the single tax, it would, as a matter of justice, be necessary to compensate present land-owners, and that having to pay out with one hand, while taking in with the other, would neutralize the benefits. I do not think this quite true. In any growing country I think the land might be bought and compensation made, and still a residual benefit be left, for the future at least. But I do hold that any plan that involves such compensation is utterly impracticable, and that the people, of whom there are many in England, calling themselves land nationalizers, who propose to make the land again the property of the nation by buying it up, are, so far as their direct object is concerned, wasting their time. But we single tax men deny the necessity of compensation.

We deny its justice. Nor is it practicable to attach it to our plan. What we are proposing is taxation. Compensation does not consort with taxation.

We do not propose to take any land without paying the owner for it. We do not propose to take land except where it is needed for special public uses. And, where this is done, we would continue the present practice of compensating the owner for its selling value, as long as it has any selling value. So far from quarrelling with the justice of this, we fully recognize its justice. For to take land from some without compensation while leaving it to others would be making fish of one and fowl of another. But, while we propose to continue the present practice in this respect, we also propose to continue it in another. The present practice is to compensate people from whom property is taken, but it is not to compensate those on whom taxes are laid. I never in all my life heard of the imposition of a tax with accompanying compensation to the people who were ultimately to pay it. If compensation of that sort is just, I have a big bill against this community myself.

But it is not merely that we do not in form propose to take any thing from its owner: it is true in reality. We do not in reality propose to take from any one what he already has, even though he has it unjustly. What we do propose is that we shall in the future take for the community the revenue that properly accrues to the community. We do not propose to settle old scores. We do not propose to bring a bill against any one for what has been taken that belongs to the community. We propose to let by-gones be by-gones, and virtually to say, “Keep what you have; but don’t do it any more.”

People are led into confusion by assuming that we propose to take land from its owners. They are also led into confusion by assuming that the selling or capitalized value of land is something that has already accrued to the owners,—something already in their possession. That this is an error may be readily seen. What gives its selling value to any piece of land? Not what it has yielded to the owner in the past, not even what it is yielding to the owner in the present, but what it is expected to yield the owner in the future. A lot adjoining a railway station on the plains may for some years past have yielded to its owner a rent of $1,000 a year. It may be yielding at that rate now. But if it be known that on the 1st of January next the railway station is to be moved away, and that the lot would then cease to yield any rent, its selling value would disappear. In spite of what it had yielded, in spite of what it was even now yielding, it would have no selling value at all beyond that of the rent it would yield till the 1st of January. And this is true in all cases. The capitalized or selling value of land is determined not by any advantage that its ownership has already yielded or is now yielding, but by the expectation of the advantage that it will yield in the future.

Confusion arises from thinking of the “unearned increment” as though it were synonymous with selling value. But the unearned increment of wealth that goes to land-owners is a portion of the continuous production of wealth, which we commonly estimate annually. It is, in short, an annual return, its capitalized or selling value being dependent on the expectation of future returns. Now, what the single tax proposes is in the /uture to take for public uses what would otherwise go to land-owners, though unearned by them. We propose to do this as soon as we can, and as fast as we may, by a tax which, even when imposed, can only operate in the future. And we propose to use the proceeds of this tax to supply revenue now yielded by taxes that bear on industry, repress enterprise, and take from individuals what is properly theirs.

What is therefore involved in the claim for compensation? It is not that what has been once given shall not be taken away. It is, that because individuals have in the past been allowed to take for themselves what belonged to the community, they must be allowed to do so in the future, and their successors after them. It is, that one generation having made a mistake in the levying of taxation, all future generations must continue this mistake. It is, that having been robbed all my life by taxes that extorted from me the fruits of my labor, I must submit to the continuance of this robbery for the rest of my days, and that my descendants for all time must submit. Could the men of the past morally bind the men of the present? Can the men of to-day, by their errors or their profligacy, bind the men that are to come? There have been times when men could legally sell themselves into slavery. Granted, if you please, that where such sale was legal it constituted a moral bond. Did that bond attach to the unborn descendants of the man who thus sold himself? Did it make immoral any effort of theirs to release themselves by the repeal of laws which made such slavery legal? This claim for compensation involves, theoretically, the perpetuation of the same injustice in another form. It involves, practically, the claim that we must continue to act unjustly because we have acted unjustly. The doctrine of the divine right of kings was almost reasonable as compared with so preposterous a doctrine.

In speaking this morning, Professor Seligman said something like this: that, if there was in the present state of society a landless man, he was only landless because he was too poor to buy anything; that the reason that prevented him from buying land was the same reason that prevented him from buying anything else. This is true. But that it is true in the present state of society does not show that it is just. It is in accordance with justice that save by gift no one should have these other things —the things produced from land by labor—without buying them, since for all such things a price must be originally paid. They are in the first place bought from Nature, so to speak, by the exertion necessary to produce them. But it is not in accordance with justice that men should not be able to get land without buying it from others, since for the land no original price was paid. Land is the gratuitous gift of Nature to men,— the free bounty of the Creator to his children. Here is a man who, like all of us, has come into the world bringing nothing with him. Imagine him grown and in his full powers. He has as yet done no work and has no proceeds of his own labor with which to buy the proceeds of any one else’s labor. But has he no right to go to work without paying some one else for permission? Has he no right to the natural element, indispensable of all work? When a man buys a hat, a house, when he buys grain or cheese, he is giving the produce of labor for the produce of labor. There is an exchange. But, when he is compelled to give to another the produce of his labor for something that existed before labor was, it is not exchange. It is a robbery!

The landless man! Nature knows no such thing as a landless man. She brings no man into being where she has not provided land. The landless man is as much a monstrosity as a waterless fish or an airless bird. We are land animals. What Nature gives us is our own powers and the land. The land is the reservoir from which we must all draw. It is the indispensable element to all exertion, the natural factor in all production. The equal right to live involves the equal right to land. And, in making rights to land equal, what are we doing? Taking from any one what properly belongs to him? Not at all. We are simply securing to each what is properly his. The only power we are taking from any individual is the power of making an unjust appropriation,— the power of taking the proceeds of labor without doing labor. What we single tax men are proposing is not confiscation: it is the stoppage of confiscation.

Supposing we could to-morrow appropriate all land values by means of the single tax and abolish all other taxes, what would be the result? Such an increase of prosperity, such an impetus to business, such a demand for labor and all the products of labor as we have never dreamed of. Every wheel of industry would spring into motion, and there would ensue to the community as a whole a general and enormous gain. Some men might lose relatively, but as members of the community they would share in the absolute gain. Now, as Professor James has well brought out, we do not prohibit invention or restrain industrial improvement because they may relatively injure individuals. Why then should we for this reason forego governmental improvement? There are to-day inventions talked of as possible that would make existing steamships all but worthless. Who would say that such inventions should be prohibited because of the loss to steamship owners? Why, then, should any one say that an improved method of collecting taxes, which would produce general beneficial results, should be prohibited because of the loss to land-owners?

Mr. ATKINSON.— The landless man has a right to access to land without pay, you say. You, therefore, let him occupy a piece of land without pay, in order that he may get his living out of it; but you make it the condition of the occupancy that out of the proceeds of the work he puts on that land he shall surrender such part of the proceeds of the work as will meet all the taxes, while I, who do not choose to work land, but sit in a chair and work with my brain, pay none of them. You, therefore, put a condition on the landless man which is vastly more onerous than the condition of being obliged to buy a lot and having somebody else share the taxes with him.

Mr. GEORGE.— We do nothing of the kind. We would not tax any one for holding land, but only for holding valuable land; that is, land to which economic rent attaches, because superior to land that others are using. Every man has an equal right to land; but the equality of this right involves the limitation that he has no more right than any one else, consequently no right to any better land than any one else can get. He has a right to get and use, without payment, land to which no economic rent attaches. Such land, under our system, he could get for nothing; for land speculation would be killed. And, in using it, he would have no taxes at all to pay, either on land, on improvements, on produce, or on anything else. But when his land became valuable,— that is, commanded a premium because better than land which others were using,— then he would have to pay a tax. In short, we do not propose to tax land. We propose to tax land values.

The longer you think of it, the more clearly you will see that the change we propose involves no real injury to any one; that even those who lose relatively would be more than compensated by their share in the general gain. And I would like those who are thinking of the single tax as springing on unsuspecting land-owners like a tiger from ambush to know, that much as we single tax men would like to have it go into force to-morrow morning, we realize the certainty that we cannot be gratified. We can only accomplish the change we seek by the slow process of educating men to demand it. In the very nature of things it can only come slowly and step by step. We do not delude ourselves on that point, and never have.

One of the speakers this morning spoke of the injustice of the single tax in taking away from a man who had just bought land the possibility of his getting any “ unearned increment” from it. The suggestion is that of a man buying land at present prices, and then by the sudden advent of the single tax finding the value of his purchase utterly gone. But it is only as it arrived, step by step, at or near the point of perfection that the single tax could destroy the possibility of getting any “unearned increment.” Then, since every step in the single tax must tend to somewhat reduce the selling value of land, where is the point short of the very last step, when selling values would have shaded down almost to nothing, where the purchaser of land could suddenly lose his whole investment? unless, indeed, he bought on a basis of wild-cat speculation, which the first instalment of the single tax would prick. But, if you can imagine any one so surprised as this supposititious purchaser, would he really deserve sympathy? The single tax can only come by slow advances, and each advance — ay, even the agitation for each advance — gives notice. Already this agitation is going on, and is beginning to assume practical shape. It will go on from one step to another. And, if any man chooses to shut his eyes to what is coming, does he not deserve to lose?

Another question is, Why should land-owners be taxed and capital escape? In an audience like this I need not waste time in exposing the errors of those who mix all sorts of things under the name of capital. Capital, in the true meaning of the term, consists of wealth; that is, of the products of exertion used in production. We would levy no tax on capital, because it is clearly unjust to take from any one the produce of his exertion. Whatever a man brings forth, whatever he adds to the common stock of wealth, belongs to him alone; and it is a wrong to take from him any part of it. If a man builds a house, he ought to have the whole house, not nine-tenths of it. If he cultivates a field, the whole produce should be his. If he puts up machinery or builds a factory, it is a violation of the right of property to demand, on the part of the State, that he shall share with others what his own exertion has produced. And these rights of the producer pass with his title. Therefore, it is unjust to tax capital.

In the next place, it is inexpedient. We want more capital. We want more wealth in all its forms. This country, as Mr. Atkinson has very well shown, is, after all, a very poor country. So with Great Britain. With all the wealth that is concentrated there, the great mass of the people are underclothed and underhoused, if not underfed. They do not get enough wealth to enable them to lead wholesome lives and to properly develop their powers. Nor would they get enough if wealth were equally divided. We want more wealth, and therefore it is inexpedient to tax wealth in any of its forms. Tax wealth, and you will have less wealth. But, again, you cannot tax the capitalist in taxing capital. It slips off the capitalist and rests on the consumer, falling with the heaviest weight on the poorest people.

Another question sometimes asked is, If you would take the unearned increment of land values, why not take other unearned increments? Well, what are they? I can think of nothing which can be fairly likened to that increased value which attaches to land by the progress of society except that which attaches to franchises. As the village grows into the city, the business of the street railway becomes more profitable. So with gas-works, waterworks, etc. So with railways generally. But, if these increased profits are not ultimately resolvable into increased economic rent, they are of the same nature. Such franchises are special privileges, like the privilege of holding valuable land; and the profits due to the general growth ought, as we hold, to be taken for public use or diffused through the community by a reduced price of services. I am inclined to think, as the majority of single tax men think, that the best way would be for the community to perform such services for itself, as by supplying its own gas and its own water and running its own street railways, and, if not operating the larger railways, at least maintaining the roadways.

I do not suppose there is any one here who would hold that the occasional (and even, so far as they may be concerned, accidental) profits that sometimes come to men by fluctuations in the price of products are in the nature of an unearned increment, or that, even if practicable, it would be wise for the community to try to take them; for that would be to discourage the forethought which plays a beneficent part in equalizing supply. But there are some things to which additional value seems to accrue with the increase of wealth and culture, or even by lapse of time. Thus there are paintings that rise greatly in value long after those who painted them are dead. But this is simply an increase in the reward of the labor of production, going to the owner of the picture or successor to the original right of the painter. And that it goes to him, and not to some other, is in itself the legitimate reward of the taste and sagacity evinced in buying the picture. So a coin, a vase, a book, may become more valuable simply because of their age. But the principle is the same. Such things are in their nature subject to exclusive ownership. And this ownership involves the right to any increase of value that may from any cause attach to them.

Again, there are certain businesses that yield larger profits with the growth of population. The most striking of these, perhaps, is the newspaper. As the village becomes a large city, the local newspaper, instead of making a few hundred dollars a year, may yield a revenue of hundreds of thousands. But the increased profit is conditioned on the ability to publish a paper that will meet the new demands. There is a certain element of monopoly in the newspaper press, due to news combinations and resting largely on the private control of telegraphs. But, in spite of this, there is nothing more striking in the growth of our cities than the way in which newspapers rise and fall, showing how, after all, their success depends on the ability of their conductors.

I know of no business to which anything like an unearned increment attaches. The growth of a town may make a hotel more valuable; but the increased value attaches to the land, just as the value of the publican’s license in England goes ultimately to the land-owner. And the general principle, I should say, is this: — that, wherever an increased advantage attaches to a thing properly subject to private ownership, it belongs to the owner; but, where it attaches to that which properly belongs to the community, it should be taken by the community.

The case of bonds, where their selling value rises by the fall of interest, has also been cited; and I am asked to refer to it. A bond is a contract between two parties, one of whom for a valid consideration agrees to pay certain sums periodically and a certain sum finally. Where the contract is between private parties, as in the case of a railway bond, is it not clear that it includes all the contingencies that may affect the selling value of the bond? And is this not also clear, when the contract is between a government and individuals? The loaner or buyer takes the chances for gain or loss, whether they arise from special or from general causes; and, so long as you propose to respect the contract, they must be left to him. And observe: When the selling value of a bond rises because of a general fall of interest, the relations between the parties are unchanged except that, could the contract be terminated, the one might borrow and the other lend at lower interest. The payments called for are unaffected. The rise in the selling value of the bond is merely a change of ratio between selling and annual value. It does not add to the revenue of the bond-holder; nor, if he sells to invest again, can he increase his revenue.

I know of no such thing as a perpetual bond or a perpetual debt at a fixed rate of interest. With the fall of interest, governments have reduced the interest they pay, either on expiration of the time for which bonds were issued or by more or less compulsory refunding processes. And I may say incidentally that I do not ' regard the fall of interest proper as a necessary consequence of social progress. So far from the effect of the single tax being, as some think, to reduce the rate of interest, my opinion is that it would increase it. If this be so, the effect upon bonds would be the reverse of that contemplated in the question. Their selling value would decrease instead of increase.

But to go to what may perhaps be the spirit of the question. While it is a matter that I do not care to raise now,—for, just as the land supports us all, so is the reform that would open land to labor the most fundamental of all reforms,—I may frankly avow my belief that there is no justification for public debts. As there never could have lived men who could validly dispose of land for all time, so no generation can validly burden other generations with debt. In the same letter in which he declared it self-evident that land belongs in usufruct to the living and not to the dead, Thomas Jefferson stated this principle, and proposed that all public debts and statutes should be deemed void on the lapse of a period which he thought about the time that one generation passes away and another succeeds. The more this proposition was considered, he said, the more salutary it would seem. And so, in the light of to-day, I think it will. This power of incurring public debts, of bonding future generations, is the power that maintains monstrous armaments, and is rapidly putting the civilized world in pawn. In the interests of civilization it must be ended, and it will be ended.

Professor Seligman has said that the true principle is, not taxation according to benefits, but taxation according to ability,— meaning, I presume, ability to pay. To us it is as unjust and absurd to charge men with taxation in proportion to their ability to pay as it would be to charge them for postage-stamps in proportion to their ability to pay. If men get rich dishonestly, it is no remedy to tax them more. If they get rich honestly, it is a gross outrage. No one ought to be forced to pay more than another because he is more industrious or more talented, or has more foresight, or any other personal quality. All men ought to be put upon an equality of opportunity, letting whoso can work best and hardest take all the advantage that those qualities give. It is unjust to tax men according to their ability to pay. And it is inexpedient to tax qualities or the earnings of qualities that increase the general stock of wealth. Not merely this, but it is clearly impossible to tax men according to their ability to pay. All over the world it has been tried. Has it ever succeeded? In the United States to-day we are trying to tax men according to their ability to pay. This is the theory of many of our federal taxes and of nearly all our local taxes. What is the result? The rich man walks from under such taxes. The farmer pays on his tools; he pays on his little stock, on all he has. But the millionaire,— not only does he pay far less of the indirect taxes in proportion to his ability than fall on the sewing-girl and the day laborer, but even of the direct taxes he pays less then men of small means. And the attempt to tax men according to their ability has notoriously led to evasions, perjuries, briberies, corruption, and widespread demoralization.

No: we ought to tax men according to the special advantages they receive from the community, thus putting all men on an equal plane and giving free play to personal qualities. Here is the principle: We are all equally entitled to the use of land; and for the use of land in itself there should be no tax whatever. But where a value attaches to the land itself—that is to say, where land is so much better than the ordinary that it commands a premium —there a special privilege is accorded the holder. He receives from social growth and improvement a special advantage; and in the tax we propose we would simply take the value of that special advantage for the whole community, thus putting all upon the same plane.

That this is the true principle is shown by the fact that the tax on land values can be collected with the minimum of cost and the maximum of certainty; that it does not provoke the evasion, fraud, and corruption that are incident to other taxes. Land lies out-ofdoors; it cannot be concealed or carried away. And its value can be ascertained with more certainty than any other value.

I said this afternoon that the land-owner as a land-owner was absolutely useless. Perhaps I had better go into that matter a little more fully. If any one thinks that the land-owner as landowner is of any use, it is because he is confounding ownership with possession; and when people talk, as some gentlemen have talked here, of the advantages of the private ownership of land, they are thinking of the advantages of secure possession. Secure possession of land is necessary to the best use of land, but that is not ownership. The reason possession is needed is to give security that the improver shall reap the rewards of his exertion and outlay. But ownership is not necessary to secure improvement. In New York to-day you will find buildings erected on land owned by other parties, erected on leases, on the security of possession for a certain time. Go into Chicago, and you will find buildings erected in the same way; and there to-day you will find buildings erected on city land, not on long leases or a fixed rent, but with the contract that at short intervals a revaluation shall be made, and that the rent shall be increased as the land increases in value.

No man ploughs a field to get the rewards of its ownership: he ploughs to get the rewards of industry. No man builds to get the rewards of land-ownership: he builds to get the rewards of building. Perhaps that is a little too sweeping a statement. There are cases in which houses are built and improvements made to get the reward of land-ownership. Go, for instance, to some of those “boom towns” in the West. About Los Angeles you may find great hotels standing empty. Nobody lives in them, and nobody ever has lived in them. They were erected as “bait for suckers” during the boom. In other places you may find railways covered up in mud and streets laid out where people are ploughing. That is the wasteful sort of improvement that is done to get the rewards of land-ownership. The industry that landownership stimulates! It is the industry of the “boomer” and “Jand-shark,” the sort of industry expended in getting up the maps of Eden that dazzled Martin Chuzzlewit!

To leave the rewards of mere land-ownership to individuals is not merely #of to encourage real improvement, it is powerfully to discourage it. The American farmer strives, wherever he can, to get more land than he can possibly use profitably, in the hope of gain by the increase in value, and thus compels the next comer to go further on. So around all our cities you may see vacant lots, held at high prices against those who would use them. We have a population so diffused in some parts as to deprive it of advantages and economies that civilization ought to give, so crowded in other parts that healthy physical or moral life is impossible. The mortgaged homestead, the filthy tenement house, the seeming want of work where men are suffering for want of the things that work produces; the perplexing paradoxes, the threatening problems, presented by what is called the labor question,— these are the fruits of private land-ownership, the results of leaving to individuals that fund which ought to go to supply the needs of the community.

Professor Seligman said that the advocates of the single tax do not understand the science of finance. Well, if some of the reasoning we have heard here be the result of understanding the science of finance, we single tax men are glad that we don’t understand it. He has also said that the professors of political economy as a class are against us. Unfortunately, that is true. But is it astonishing? Given a great social wrong that affects the distribution of wealth, and it is in the nature of things that professors of political economy should either belong to or consciously or unconsciously be influenced by the very class who profit by the wrong, and who oppose, therefore, all means for its remedy.

Professor Seligman intimates that we who are not of the colleges ought to accept what professors of political economy tell us of that science, as we accept what professors of the physical sciences tell us of their domain. The difference, which he ignores, is that researches into’ the physical laws of nature do not affect the “pocket nerve”: political economy does. And just as Macaulay has said,— if there were any large pecuniary interests concerned in denying the law of gravitation, that law would not be acknowledged to this day! It certainly would not be in the universities and colleges.

There is a reason why the great majority of us must, in such matters as astronomy or chemistry, accept what the professors of such sciences tell us. We cannot all study such sciences: we have neither the leisure,.the knowledge, nor the opportunities. But if we cannot all study political economy,— the science whose phenomena lie about us in our daily lives, and enter into our most important relations, and whose laws lie at the bottom of questions we are called on to settle with our votes,— then democratic republican government is doomed to failure; and, the quicker we surrender ourselves to the government of the rich and learned, the better..

Let me say a direct word to you professors of political economy, you men of light and leading, who are fighting the single tax with evasions and quibbles and hair-splitting. We single tax men propose something that we believe will make the life of the masses easier, that will end the strife between capital and labor, and solve the darkening social problems of our time. If our remedy will not do, what is your remedy? It will not do to propose little goodygoody palliatives, that hurt no one, help no one, and go nowhere. You must choose between the single tax, with its recognition of the rights of the individual, with its recognition of the province of government, with its recognition of the rights of property, on the © one hand, and socialism on the other.

Gentlemen, don’t quibble and split hairs about this matter. It is too solemn, too important. It involves the happiness, the health, the lives, the very souls, of human beings. It involves the progress of society, the fate of civilization. If you have had superior education, if you have had what to so many of us has been denied, the leisure for study, the opportunity to cultivate what is highest and best in your powers, the more is it incumbent on you to meet the question frankly and fairly. If you will not accept our remedy, what is your remedy? There must be some deep wrong underlying our organization to-day. If it is not the wrong we point to, the wrong that disinherits men of their birthright, what is it? There must be some way of securing to the laborer the proper rewards of his toil, of opening to every man willing to work opportunity to work. If you will not take our plan, what is your plan? You see these recurring strikes, you see the destructive contests that they involve, you see larger combinations marshalling for a wider and bitterer war. You must see that no man or body of men can have the moral right to demand that other men shall employ them or shall pay them a certain rate of wages. But is it not also clear that there is a right belonging to every man, a right attested by his very presence in this world,— the right to employ his own labor? If you reject our simple plan for securing that, how do you propose to secure it?

Modern society cannot stand still. All over the civilized world social conditions are becoming intolerable. If you reject the single tax, look to it, from what you turn and toward what you are going. We propose to respect to the full the rights of property. We propose to assure to each man his own, be it much or little. We would remove all restrajnts on production, all penalties on honest acquisition. We care not how rich any man may become, so long as he does not appropriate what belongs to others. We ask no class legislation, no favors or doles for any set of men. We would do away with all special privileges, abolish all monopolies, and put all men on the same level with regard to natural opportunities and before the law. We would simplify government, do away with its interferences in private affairs, and strike at the root of political corruption.

What is proposed on the other side? More restrictions, more interferences, more extensions of government into the individual field, more organization of class against class, more bars to the liberty of the citizen. In turning from us, even though it be to milk-and-water socialism, you are turning to the road that leads to revolution and chaos, you are using your influence to intensify the fight in the dark that, as it goes on, must evolve the forces that destroy civilization.

Remarks of Professor Seligman

After my paper of this morning I scarcely expected to take part in this general discussion, but the fact that Mr. George has done me the honor of addressing his principal remarks to some of my arguments makes it incumbent on me to reply. Before coming to the arguments proper, a few words are necessary as to Mr. George’s undeserved slur at professors of “ political economy.” Mr. George practically said that the professors of this science are frauds and hypocrites. I thank him for this gentle insinuation, but I repel the charge as one unworthy of every honest disputant. To say that because a man does not agree with you he must be either a fool or a hypocrite is a most unwarranted and, let me add, rather egotistic assertion; while the charge in reference to professors of economics in particular is destitute of all foundation. This charge may possibly have contained a grain of truth in former days, when the acceptance of a college position, both here and abroad, was hedged about with manifold restrictions, religious as well as otherwise. But in the universities of to-day, which in this country are to a continually greater extent coming to be State universities and supported by the funds not of any class, but of the whole community, the professors are selected; not because of any preconceived opinions, but because of their ability to pursue the truth, the pure naked truth. The professor of to-day is responsible only to himself and to his own conscience; and it is a most gratuitous assumption to claim that, because he does not belong to a particular school, he must be a charlatan and a hypocrite.

[Here Mr. George was understood to say he did not mean that all professors of political economy, and least of all Professor Seligman, could be accused of hypocrisy. He spoke of a Professor Ogilvie in Scotland, who a hundred years ago secretly shared views which he did not publicly declare. He said that professors naturally belonged to the property-owning class, however, and were therefore opposed to all attempts at reform.]

I am very glad to hear this disclaimer, which, however, does not mend matters much. Mr. George assumes that the professors naturally have a bias toward conservatism. Without any desire to become personal, may I ask whether it is quite fair to assume that such a bias is confined to any one class? Is it beyond the range of possibility that popular orators, of whom Mr. George is so eloquent a type, may also have their bias? I think not. But, without developing this idea further, let me say that it is grossly unjust to ascribe to professors of political economy a truckling or even an unconscious subservience to the powers that be. All history disproves this. Take Adam Smith, the founder of the science, who started the movement for free trade,—a movement which for many years encountered the fiercest opposition on the part of the powerful landed aristocracy, the dominant interest in England at that time. To come to the other end of English development, to whom do we find is due the great awakening of interest on the part of the so-called higher classes toward the laborer? Who has done more than all else to change the dominant sentiment and to inaugurate an era of practical reforms? A university lecturer, Arnold Toynbee. In Germany, it was again an assemblage of university professors who under the title of the “Union for Social Politics” planted themselves squarely in the path of the dominant capitalist class, and amid the fiercest opposition carried through a whole series of reforms in the interest of the laborers, which have, for good or for evil, marked the economic history of the last twenty years in Germany. In Italy, it is the university professors who have supported the projects of cooperation, of popular banks, of profit-sharing, of factory laws, and of land reform. And in the United States, to mention only one instance, almost the entire support which the labor-unions receive is at the hands of the college professors,—a course which has drawn upon them not a little opprobrium. Clearly, Mr. George has no right to assert that the professors of political economy are unmindful of the slums, or helplessly wedded to existing economic conditions. And, although I do not wish to deny for a moment the immense influence of Mr. George’s eloquence in stirring the seething cauldron of social discontent, I would ask, By virtue of what prerogative does he arrogate to himself the position of sole spokesman of the down-trodden class? Listen to the following words in the last number of the Nationalist, a magazine which surely voices the sentiments of many thousands of workmen: “Once our wage-earners thought they had a competent leader in Henry George. We all know how splendidly they seconded him; but they soon discovered that he did not really sympathize with them.”

I quote this, not because it is my belief (for I doubt its truth), but because it is the belief of an ever growing mass of his former supporters. Let me tell Mr. George that the reason why college professors are not counted among his followers is not because they are afraid of consequences, but because they utterly repudiate the adequacy of his solution. Show us that your remedy is a true remedy; convince us that your methods are just and that your results will be efficacious; bring home to us, in short, the proof that you have really solved the social question,— and I can assure you that you will find no more devoted or enthusiastic adherents than the college professors. But do not offer us schemes which are repugnant to our moral sense and repellent to our logic. Do not hold forth as a panacea what all sound economists regard as woful error. Above all, do not assume that every one who cannot share your convictions is an enemy of progress and true civilization. I, for one, repudiate with all the vehemence I possess such an utterly baseless and puerile assumption. If the fight is to be won, it must be by arguments, and not by epithets.

After these preliminary remarks let us come to the bill of particulars advanced by Henry George. But, first, just one word as to a contention of Mr. Garrison this morning. Mr. Garrison said the land-owner is like the slave-owner. Was it right to compensate the slave-owner? It was the slave, and not the slave-owner, who ought to be compensated. Now, this is very pretty, this is very specious; but, unfortunately, this is not sound. In the case of slavery we have three parties, the slave, the slave-owner, and the State. In the other case, we only have two parties, the land-owner and the State. In thecase of slavery it is the slave who is injured; but how, in the name of common sense, can the land be said to be injured? It was wrong to own the slave, because it was a violation of his rights as a moral being; but I have yet to learn that the land possesses any claims to moral consciousness. The cases are utterly dissimilar.

Let us take up now the first of the points raised by Mr. George, the important point of compensation. Here I must substantially hold to my remarks of this morning. If it be true indeed that land-ownership is robbery, then I confess compensation would be wrong. But what has to be proved is precisely that private property in land is robbery. And that, as we shall see in a moment, has never been proved. Mr. George has utterly failed to convince me. He practically confessed that, if the total land values were taken away at once and unconditionally, this would be confiscation. He seeks to avoid the difficulty by proposing that only portions should be gradually and successively taken; and I am sorry to say that my friend Professor James, in his remarks of this evening, seemed to lend a partial support to this view. Now, I cannot possibly see any difference, in so far as the loss is concerned, whether a man’s teeth are pulled out one by one or whether they are all taken together. If it is confiscation to take the total annual value, it is a pro tanto confiscation to take any part of this value. On the assumption that the same man owns the land all the time, it makes no difference whether his property is taken in ten equal instalments or in one huge lump. The nature of the act is not altered one whit. Clearly, partial confiscation is nevertheless confiscation.

But to come to the pith of the matter: Mr. George says that we are not in the habit of compensating for a tax. That is perfectly true on the assumption that the tax is an equal tax, as most taxes are at least intended to be. But if the State says to one man, You shall pay me a thousand dollars, and to another man in exactly the same position, You shall pay me ten dollars, then the robbery of the first cannot be cloaked by simply calling it a tax. If the State takes away from me my diamonds and leaves my neighbor in possession of his, then the confiscation is no less a confiscation because it is called a tax. If the State singles out a particular plot and takes it for the public, it compensates the owner because the burden falls exclusively on him. If the State singles out a particular class, and takes away only their property and not that of others in an equally good position, the claim for compensation cannot be brushed aside by simply calling it a tax. Names must not deceive us. It is equality and justice that must guide us.

Henry George says that he proposes to let bygones be bygones. Is this true? He says that the capitalized or selling value of land depends only on what it is expected it will yield in the future. This also is a baseless assertion. The future productiveness is only one of the elements. The present productiveness is another, and even the past productiveness is generally one of the most important tests of value. If you will say that future productiveness depends on an estimate based upon a comparison of past and present productiveness, then I can have no quarrel with the assertion. But does Mr. George want to let bygones be bygones? He says that he wants to take only the future unearned increment; but he labors under a mistake. That was John Stuart Mill’s plan, the only honest plan. If I invest $10,000 in a plot of land and get a rent of $600 (about the usual interest), I obtain no unearned increment. As soon as through the progress of society this rent increases to $800, I get, if you will, an unearned increment of $200. Now, this increase, this increment, this $200, is what Mill proposed to take, although he never had the idea of a single tax. But as soon as you take the entire $800 you are taking more than the future unearned increment. You are taking the entire value, and you are not letting bygones be bygones. Increment, Mr. George, means increase; and you are taking more than the future increase.

The question of confiscation cannot be settled in any such easy manner. Mr. George has spoken of property which has been rendered practically worthless through a new invention or discovery. Do we compensate the existing owners? asks he. No, of course not; but why? A new invention represents a practical gain to production. It is the supplanting of the old, the worn-out, by the new. It is only by this process that advancing civilization becomes possible. It is like the hand-loom weaver, whose interests were for the time being injured by machinery, but who, in the long run, was immensely benefited. But what analogy is there between this case and the confiscation of land? How is the land-owner to derive any special benefit from the change? It must first be proved that the abolition of private ownership will revolutionize production in the good sense,—an assertion the very contrary of which is rather true. And, secondly, even if we accept Mr. George’s assumption that land confiscation will benefit the community, it has yet to be shown why, if the benefits are to be equal to all, the burden should fall on only the small class of landowners. Clearly, the analogy between the undisputed benefits of a new invention and the extremely questionable results of land nationalization is a very far-fetched one.

No amount of mere assertion will prove that confiscation is not confiscation. Mr. George has told us that compensation is impracticable; but that is a mere statement, without any proof. The question still resolves itself into this. If I purchase to-day a plot of land for $10,000, (which $10,000 are the results of my labor and skill), while my neighbor purchases a house for $10,000 (also the result of his labor and skill), why, I ask, should my $10,000 be taken away, and his $10,000 be left intact. No amount of jugglery with words can disguise the force of this plain question, and nothing that Mr. George has ever said has answered it. He confuses the ownership of the land with the ownership of the capital paid for the land. I repeat what I said this morning, that the great majority of existing land values in the United States have been purchased for cash, for capital, for the product of labor. And, as long as the State has clothed this form of capital invested in land with the insignia of property, the land-owner, who has paid for his land, has an undeniable claim to compensation.

We come now to what I consider the most baseless contention of Mr. George. Land should not belong to any one, says he, because it is not the result of individual labor. The argument has two branches. First, I deny that any such sharp line of demarcation can be drawn between land and other things. Secondly, I repeat my assertion of this morning, that it is illogical to confine the unearned increment to land alone.

In the first place, if it be said that the value of land is wholly the work of the community, how can we logically deny that the value of any so-called product is partly the work of the community? Individual labor, I venture to say, has never by itself produced anything in civilized society. Let us take the workman, fashioning a chair. The wood he certainly has not produced. The tools that he uses are the result of the contribution of others. The house in which he works, the clothes he wears, the food he eats (all of which are necessary to the making of a chair in civilized society), are the result of the contributions of the community. His safety from robbery and pillage — nay, his very existence — is dependent on the ceaseless co-operation of the society about him. How can it be said, in the face of all this, that his own individual labor wholly creates anything? If it be answered that he pays for his tools, his clothing, his protection, etc., I say, So does the land-owner pay for the land he purchases. Nothing, I repeat, is wholly the result of unaided individual labor. No one has a right to say, This belongs completely and absolutely to me because I alone have produced it. In truth, this is the groundwork of socialism. The socialists have been far more logical than Henry George. They deny the existence of any difference, save that in degree, between property in land and property in other capital. That is the reason why the English enthusiasts are leaving land nationalization and enrolling themselves under the banners of socialism. That is the reason why, in this country, the growth of Bellamy’s Nationalism marks the gradual decadence of the single tax movement. That is the reason why any one who has to do with laboring men throughout the country is now meeting in every centre hundreds who were formerly Georgeites, but who now have become converted to the newer forms of socialism. I agree neither with Mr. George nor with the socialists. I think the premises of each are wrong. But, as regards logic, the socialists have clearly won a victory over Henry George.

Now, secondly, why limit unearned increment to land? Mr. George says that the only other case he can think of is that of franchises, and that these also ought to be taken for the community. Now, this means one of two things, either the community must tax them or it must acquire them by purchase or confiscation. Now, if the State taxes them, we no longer have the single tax on land values, but also an additional tax on something else. What, then, becomes of the great crusade for the single tax? But if the State. acquires them,— that is to say, nationalizes all occupations which enjoy a special franchise,— how is Mr. George to be distinguished from those socialists whom he professes so to abhor? These are the horns of the dilemma.

But Mr. George’s contention that there are no such cases of unearned increment is absolutely incorrect. Let us first analyze a few of the cases which he attempts to explain away. Mr. George says, Here is an old picture which greatly increases in value; and he maintains that this is due to the man who had the sagacity and the taste and the forethought to buy this picture. Now, I appeal to the common sense of this audience. Twenty years ago I bought a Diaz, a Corot, or Millet for $500, which now is worth $20,000, solely because of the scarcity of such pictures and the increased demand of those that have a use for them. Twenty years ago I bought for $500 a plot of land in a Western town, which now has appreciated to the same sum ($20,000); and, mind you, for the very same reason,— namely, the increased demand of those that can use the land. Now, if I am entitled to the increased value of the picture because of my sagacity and forethought, why, in the name of common sense, am I not entitled to the increased value of the land, due equally to my sagacity and forethought? I have done no more to enhance the value of the picture than that of the land. The arguments are precisely identical.

Then Mr. George says, Value may attach to other things by mere passage of time. An old Roman coin is worth a great deal because I have taken care of it for so long. But is not the increased value of land due precisely to the same passage of time? If I buy a lot on Wall Street, I and my descendants will, you may be sure, take very good care of it, and we shall bestow upon its protection from intruders and robbers a great deal more care than the owner of the Roman coin. The argument is precisely the same. But these are of course all trifles, although they are good samples of Mr. George’s logic. Let us take far more important examples.

The value of railway securities in the United States to-day is over $9,000,000,000, and the securities of other corporations amount to many millions more. It is safe to say that the value of the bare land owned by individuals is far less than these corporate securities, which form a large part of the intangible personal property of individuals. Now, has anything that Mr. George advances tended to disprove the existence of unearned increments in these? I invest $100,000 in the railway bonds of a young corporation; I get 6 per cent. interest, and pay perhaps $50 on the par value for them. In the course of twenty years, during which time the community has grown and given the railroad more traffic, this bond is worth par or even $150, and my investment represents now $200,000 or even $300,000. Have I earned this increment? Have I individually done anything to produce this added value? It is as much the work of a community as the increase in the value of any land. Why take away the unearned increment of the land-holder and leave intact the equally unearned increment of the bondholder? Do you not all see that this is the rankest injustice?

But I am willing to go much further. Mr. George cries out in pathetic terms about the robbery of the landless, about “ progress and poverty.” Now, I wish to ask any one whose mind is not befogged by the mist of erroneous enthusiasm: Who are the rich men of this country to-day? How has by far the greater part of huge wealth been acquired? Look to our millionaires and inquire. I shall tell you. The main cause is the existence of what may be called the fortuitous conjuncture of events, the chance happening due to no one’s labor, but to the turn in the wheel of fortune,— call it speculation, call it luck, call it by any name you will, How have most of the fortunes in Wall Street been made? Who is responsible for the lucky increase of his investments?

Who can say that the successful manager of the ring, the corner, the pool and the trust, has worked out his dollars through his own industry? Land speculation is only a part, and a very small part, of the sum total; and if you say that the fortunate speculator deserves his fortune because of his sagacity and foresight, why deny these attributes to the land-owner?

I do not mean to say that wealth has not been acquired by thrift and industry; but I do assert that most of the very large fortunes that strike the common observer are due to this incalculable turn in the wheel of fortune, and that the unearned increment of land values forms only a very small share of these total unearned gains. And whatever be the inference as to the policy of the State in dealing with these gains,— an inference which it is not my province to discuss here,— it is indisputably illogical and inequitable for the State to lay its hands on the land values alone. No, Mr. George, if you confiscate one kind, you must confiscate all kinds; you must meet the question of compensation with more successful arguments than have as yet been adduced.

We now come. to another point. I agree with much that Mr. George has said as to present methods of taxation. But whatever is true in Mr. George’s assertion has been said many times before. I object to the tax on movable capital, but for very different reasons from Mr. George. Mr. George falls into the vulgar error of supposing that a tax on capital diminishes capital, and thus production. Now, if Mr. George had studied the science of finance a little more, he would have learned that there is a great difference between a nominal capital tax and a real capital tax. A real capital tax is meant to be paid out of the capital itself, but a nominal capital tax is meant to be paid and is paid out of the income of the capital. Now, all the capital taxes in this country to-day are nominal capital taxes. They are meant to be paid and are paid out of the profits of the capital. They do not lessen in any degree the previously existing stock of capital. The real capital taxes which actually trench upon a nation’s capital, as apart from its revenue, have been very exceptional in the history of the world, and known only in times of great national crises. But the distinction between real and nominal taxes is familiar to every tyro in the science of finance. I do not therefore object to a capital tax for any such crude reason as that of Mr. George. I object to a tax on personal property in general: first, because the owners of personal property always manage to escape the burden, and roll it

-5 off upon the possessors of real property; and, secondly, because property is no true measure of ability to pay. Mr. George indeed has said that he repudiates the doctrine of ability as the basis of taxation; but he has simply made the assertion, he has given absolutely no proof. Ability to pay is the ideal basis of taxation. It lies instinctively and unconsciously at the bottom of all our endeavors at reform. When we say that indirect taxes are, on the whole, unfair to the laborers, we mean that they are less able to pay the same tax than the wealthier portion of the community, Their ability is less. When we say that a corporation with large receipts should pay more than one with small receipts, we do so because we instinctively feel that their ability to pay is greater. Look at it from whatever standpoint you will, ability to pay is the goal toward which all civilization is aiming, and it is false to say that this goal is impossible. Take Switzerland with its progressive income taxes, take Australia with its graduated succession duties, take other countries with their manifold systems, and you will find a greater or less approximation to this ideal. But do not take our American property tax (which is not based on ability to bear), and say that, because it is a failure, the whole principle of ability must be abandoned. As I said this morning, the principle of privileges or benefits is the principle away from which, not toward which, all science and progress have worked. It is founded on a false political philosophy, it can result only in a false political economy. Mr. George cannot, by a mere unproved assertion, reverse the progress of history and the advance of science. All nations originally started out with a tax on land; and they have worked away from that condition, as they have worked away from the primitive system of the village community. Both are suited only to the earliest stages of society.

Mr. George to-night made some very eloquent remarks about “ the oppressed workmen in the slums. It would be easy to draw a vivid picture of the oppressed farmer under the single tax régime. Our present general property tax, I confess, results in an outrageous overburdening of the farmer. But how would it be under the new principle? His burden would be intensified, not lessened. I confess that, in so far as the State taxes are concerned, it would be the owners of the city lots who would bear the chief burden, because the site value (which, as I understand it, the single tax will primarily affect) is far greater in the crowded cities than in the rural districts. But how about the local taxes, compared to which the State taxes are very insignificant? To-day it is a well-known fact that the personal property tax, which is a failure in the large cities, is more and more successful as the towns become smaller. If you will look at the assessment books of any prosperous community, you will find many inhabitants of the small village assessed at good figures for their dwelling-houses, for bank stock, or for their intangible personalty. Were we to have only the single tax, the farmer would have to pay not only the local tax that he pays now, but also the entire share of those who now contribute a considerable part of the taxes out of their personal property. No wonder the farmers perceive that this will ruin them. The immunity from indirect taxes would be dearly purchased at such a price; for it would result in the total annihilation of the one class above all others upon which true American civilization rests,— the independent small farmer. As long as the United States remains pre-eminently an agricultural community, as long as the farmers’ alliances are of any political importance, the single tax will never become a practical question.

And how is the social millennium to be brought about even for the city workman? The trouble with the average inhabitant of the tenement houses in our large cities is that they have to pay immense rents and get low wages. But how is the simple fact of their paying rent to a State official instead of to a private individual going to decrease their rent and increase their wages? Mr. George talks a great deal about private land held for speculative purposes; but I venture to say that south of 42d Street in the city of New York —the home of the major part of the tenement house population —not one-fiftieth of one per cent. of the building lots lie idle. How is the single tax going to relieve the inhabitants of the slums? They will not go to the suburbs where there is plenty of land for the same reasons that they do not go there now. Rent in the suburbs or up-town districts is at the present moment vastly less than in the crowded slums, and yet the slums are crowded. The average workman prefers to be near his work, prefers to enjoy the social opportunities of contact with his fellow-workman, evenings as well as day-times. All careful students of the problem of housing the poor have come to the conclusion that it is in the crowded centres where there is no unoccupied land, and not in the suburbs where rents are low, that the problem must be solved. Now, when we look at the thing from a practical standpoint, how is the tenement-house workman to derive any benefit from the single tax? His rent will be just exactly as high as at present; for his rent is a veritable rack-rent, fixed by the stress of competition. The competition for rooms will be not a whit less when the State becomes the landlord. And how are his wages to be increased? Wages can be increased in only one of three ways,— through the increase of capital, through the increased efficiency of the laborer, or through the increased standard of living, which will enable the workman to compel higher wages. But the single tax can accomplish none of these three things. To take away economic rent and to turn it over to the State will not increase capital one whit, will not decrease the monthly rent of the tenement-house population by one iota. Into what does all this fair dream of economic felicity resolve itself? Into mere mist, into mere nothingness. The tenement-house population, no more than the American farmer, will derive no advantage from the single tax.

Mr. George, you ask us, if the single tax is not the remedy, what is the remedy? Ay, that is the question. The science of political economy I consider the deepest, the most difficult, the most complex of all sciences. It is still in its infancy. The laws of social well-being do exist; but we are only finite mortals, and have only begun to acquire the first inkling of these laws. No one is more desirous of attaining social peace, no one has to-day 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. But when you come to us with a tale that is as old as the hills, when you set forth in your writings doctrines that have been long exploded, when you in the innocence of your enthusiasm seek to impose upon us a remedy which appears to us as unjust as it is one-sided, as illogical as it is inequitable, we have a right to protest. All careful students beware of the man with the ism. This is not the first time that the enthusiast has supposed that he has discovered a world-saving panacea. The remedy lies not in any such lop-sided idea: the remedy is the slow and gradual evolution in a hundred ways of the moral conscience of mankind. You cannot solve the labor problem by any rule of thumb. Every student of history, every student of political philosophy, every student of economics, will tell you that the progress of the race has been a slow and painful one; that the world has advanced bit by bit; and that each successive step, to be enduring, must be founded on justice. To suppose for a moment that the social millennium will be ushered in by any one sudden change — even were the change not so lamentably inadequate as the one proposed —is an evidence, not of wisdom, but of short-sightedness.

See Also

• The Saratoga Single Tax Debate (1890) — the event page: participants, framing, and reception
• Henry George · Edwin R. A. Seligman — the two disputants
• The Corruption of Economics — Gaffney's thesis that this confrontation was formative for American economics
• Single tax · Land value tax — the proposal under debate

Sources

1. Journal of Social Science, Containing the Proceedings of the American Social Science Association, No. XXVII (October 1890), "The Single Tax Discussion" (Saratoga, Sept. 5, 1890), F. B. Sanborn, ed. — the primary text reproduced on this page (Seligman's address pp. 34–44; George's remarks pp. 73–86; Seligman's reply pp. 87–98). Full-view scan: Internet Archive. — used for the full text of the three-part George–Seligman exchange reproduced above (including the interpolated Single Tax Platform and the editor's bracketed note), and for the editorial note's session details: the 5 September 1890 date, John Graham Brooks's arrangement of the debate, the affirmative and negative speaker rosters, the page ranges and titles of the ten omitted pieces, and the editor's note that Professor James's extempore remarks were not taken down.
2. The Single Tax Discussion, Held at Saratoga, Sept. 5, 1890 (American Social Science Association; F. B. Sanborn, ed.; Concord, Mass.) — the session's separately issued special edition; same text. Online Books Page — used only to document the separately issued Association edition noted in the provenance; the transcription above was made from the Journal of Social Science scan (source 1).