Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1342

Carbon of a letter to Ernest 0. Kooser, Attorney at Law, Somerset, Pennsylvania

January 25, 1941

Dear Mr. Kooser:

     My delay in replying to your kind favor of April 30, 1940, has been occasioned rather by my absence from home — travelling somewhat in the Middle West and in making several trips to Toronto and Montreal where I found persons connected with the Henry George Movement and with the school systems and universities to give a willing ear to some of the fundamental ideas in respect to which your letter responds.

     I have been much interested in reading your leaflet under the title of “What Is Economic Freedom.” You certainly make out a strong case against the current practice of looking to government and politicians for relief and redemption from the slavery and distress that their activities have already imposed. I like your emphasis on the need for freedom and voluntary activity in all fields. To me this is comprehended solely and only in the contractual relationships in which men freely engage and in which alone they can consistently and continuously create values and be of service to one another. In fact, I very much doubt if there is any possible freedom for mankind that would not be included in a full freedom to serve one another by consent and exchange.

     I think we cannot do better than always to urge that freedom is not a mere exemption from tyranny and rule of force. We must realize that we are endowed with energy and that freedom consists in so employing our powers in giving specialized services to one another and, thereby, rebuilding the physical and social world in a manner that opens to us more opportunities and alternatives than ever before. I think we should stress the service aspects of things and move forward into better conditions not so much by resistance to evil, but rather by the positive technique of service through voluntary and contractual engagements, and the creation thereby of more and more exchange values, including the value of land. It is for us to learn that all values rest upon and spring from services that are exchanged and that the value of every service is expressed by and is, in fact, the service for which it is exchanged. The fact that the performed service requires the use of physical and material things should not blind us to the fact that values reside not in these physical and material things, but in the human services that are incorporated in them or by means of these services are performed.

     It is also important for us to realize that production is a relationship between men and physical things by which physical things are in some manner transformed. It is, therefore, not a social process, but a physical one. Distribution, however — meaning not physical distri­bution but the contractual allocation of ownership and rights — is a purely social process, for it is carried out by means of free contractual relationships between men with respect to each other as regards physical and material things. Except by this contractual process and relationship through the conventions of ownership title, there is no possible way of distributing the sites and resources, any more than other physical things, among the members of a community. The recognition of title makes it possible to distribute and redistribute both natural and artificial things through the democracy of the market — the only place where men vote their wishes and desires as to the possession and use of things upon terms of equality for all and with coercion of none. Without the benefit of a market, land, like other things, could be held only by force or sufferance — by the physi­cal power of its possessor, or under the privilege and tyranny of some political authority.

     Curiously, all production begins with distribution — there must first be a social, i.e. contractual, distri­bution of sites and resources before there can be any production of wealth for exchange. This social distri­bution of land by merchandising it or by merchandising its use, is a service of distribution prerequisite to any land being productively used. The recompense that every community awards for this social service of free and contractual distribution upon equal terms and conditions to all, is called ground rent. When this service is performed, it becomes possible for men to create wealth for each other. This, however, is a physical process and must be followed by the social process of exchange under contractual relationships in which men freely engage. This purely social process of distribution (which does not involve any manipulation or alteration of physical things) is called selling or merchandising. It is just as necessary to distribute wealth by this process as it is to distribute land and its resources. We do not begrudge the recompense which the market awards to those persons who perform the dis­tributive function of selling or merchandising. In fact, we all consent to very high rewards being received by the owners of artificial things for the purely social service of distributing them. When we understand better the institution of private property in land from the operative point of view, we will no longer consider the recompense which the market awards to the owners of this land for this vital service of social distribution of sites and resources as “unearned increment.” We will find that nature has not played us false in the field of social and contractual relationships or by any of the values in respect to any movement of values and rewards under the democracy and contractual engagements of the market. As Henry George said, what men need is more enlightenment of the mind in respect to the normal process of society, and when men’s minds are so enlightened, they will see their way to those actions which are most profit­able to all the parties contracting with one another, and there will be no necessity for compulsions of any kind as to how land owners can profit themselves through giving further and carefully needed services to their present and proposed tenants and purchasers. I refer you to my little pamphlets on property in land and real estate administration.

     I am wondering if any organization or group of intelligent business or professional men in or near your locality would be interested in having me present to them some aspects of the philosophy of freedom under contractual relationships, as distinguished from coercive ones? I have a very special message, as you can see, to the organ­ized real estate and land owning interest. I am also able to create much enthusiasm among sales organizations of whatever kind by showing them the nature and beneficence of the distributive function which they perform, and that salesmanship is, in reality, only a practical application of the Golden Rule — the only way, in fact, in which the Golden Rule can be consistently and continuously put into effect as between large numbers of persons who are not in any direct and intimate relations with one another.

     I appreciate your having written me as you did, and trust I may have your further valued communication.

Sincerely yours,

 

  Spencer Heath

 

SH:HL

Enc.