Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1238

Exchange between Benjamin W. Burger, 150 Nassau Street, New York City, and Heath at Roadsend Gardens, Elkridge MD, beginning with letter from Burger of May 27, 1939, followed by carbon of Heath’s reply of June 9, 1939

 

 

 

 

Dear Mr. Heath,                       May 27, 1939

 

As I explained to you last Friday evening, I am anxious to present at the coming Henry George Congress to be held in September in New York City a full exposition of your views, particularly where you disagree with Henry George.

 

     As far as possible, I would like to present them in your language.

 

     Would I be presuming too much on your good nature to ask you to prepare this for me?

 

Very sincerely,

 

/s/ Benjamin W. Burger

 

 

___________________________________

 

 

Dear Mr. Burger:                       June 9, 1939

I doubt very much if the management of the Henry George Congress has any desire for a full exposition of my socio-economic views — or, I should say, vistas. If such were the case, I dare say they would prefer to have them direct from me instead of through an intermediary.

    However, if you desire to present to the Congress some part of the social analyses that I have been trying to make, I certainly have no objection to your doing so, assuming, of course, that you will give it, so far as is possible, in my own language, and with credit for its origin.

     The social institution with which Henry George and his writings were primarily concerned and which Henry George proposed in some of his writings should be completely destroyed or profoundly modified, to say the least, is the institution of private property in land. Henry George and his followers have shown a pronounced disposition to regard this institution as tyrannical in its origin, and as a continuing tyranny throughout the whole course of civilized life. My own examination of private property in land is based upon a presumption of its original and continuing utility, in that it maintains, at least a degree of cooperative and exchange — of social — relationship between the economic and political structure, between those who produce private wealth and services and those who create and merchandise to the community those common and public services without which no private wealth or services can be produced or exchanged.

     Henry George assumed that private ownership of land was anti-social and pathological. I have assumed that it is pro-social and physiological. Where premises are so divergent, it is not possible that there be any further divergence in the analyses.

     My printed monograph enclosed on private property in land is a very condensed and precisely worded statement of my analysis of this institution. If you think the Congress will be interested in any non-pathological analysis of this institution, I do not think you could do better than to write a review of the monograph I have just referred to. In this monograph you will find my own views and the clearest and best expression in my own words. You are at liberty to quote freely from it, but I caution you to remember that no single paragraph of it is of any complete and full significance without reference to virtually all of the remaining parts. In other words, I do not think it can be any further condensed without loss of meaning. If, however, it should turn out that a number of other persons were interested in your review, or in the ideas constituting the subject of your review, it will be possible for me to furnish you or them with the full copies of the text from which you have quoted.

     Replying to the last paragraph of your letter dated May 27th (but which did not reach me until June 7th), I should be very glad to prepare a written exposition in my own language, as you suggest. This however, I have already done in the printed monograph I referred to which deals directly with the social institution around which practically all of Henry George’s writings revolve. If you are particularly interested in disagreements, your own knowledge of the writings of Henry George will enable you to search out any points that do not agree. I would remind you, however, that when it comes to the practical application of the remedy proposed by Henry George, as he set it down on page 406 of the standard edition of Progress and Poverty, namely, “To abolish all taxation save that on land values,” there is no divergence of view, it being understood that in the absence of all other taxation, land value assessments would be automatically transformed, and would become the voluntarily assumed costs of operations of the public business whose products and services were then being merchandised to the occupants of the larger com­munities in precisely the same way as landlords now merchandise indoor community services to the occupants of hotels and other places of a community character. Any divergence between my views and those of Henry George respecting the Remedy has reference only to its mode of operation and its effects, and not to the remedy itself.

Very truly yours,

   Spencer Heath

Enc.