Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2881

Typed legal pages, author and date unknown. Some penciled amendments by Heath

 

 

 

 

   Comments Upon The Law Of Human Association

 Discovered By

Mr. Spencer Heath Of Baltimore And New York

 

Human services may be divided into two classes — public services and private services. The law of human association so far as it is the mutual exchange of private services and commodities is well known and generally recognized and enforced. However, the law of human association concerning the mutual exchange of private services and commodities for public services has from the days of Adam remained unknown to men, and it is the ignorance of this law or the failure to apply it that so greatly interferes with the mutual exchange of private services and commodities and that is the cause of much of the hatred, hostility, slavery, disease, pestilence, and famine which have characterized human history.

 

 It is generally recognized that the mutual exchange of services and commodities between human beings is necessary for the preservation of the human species. And it is almost as generally admitted that the mutual exchange of private services and com­modities for public services is equally important. The reason for this is one of the distinctions between the human and the sub­human creations. In no species of sub-human society does specialization of individuals attain the importance which it at­tains in human association. Specialization does exist to a con­siderable degree in the colonies of certain insects, such as bees and ants, but in such colonies we have discovered no such thing as private services or commodities. Wherever specialization exists among animals, it is for public services only. This is the totalitarian state.

 

 Solomon said, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise.” (Proverbs 6:6). The wise man was not thereby placing his stamp of approval on the totalitarian state, but was indicating that public services are essential to the develop­ment of industry and was refuting the teaching of anarchists that human association can be successful without government.

 

 However this may be, no one can refute the statement that specialization is a characteristic of human association of the first importance.

 

 Cain was a shepherd boy. Abel was a farmer. But because of the ignorance of the law of human association, Cain murdered Abel his brother, and since that time fratricide, murder, slavery, disease, pestilence, and famine have been all too frequent in human history and have been caused by ignorance of the law of human association, that is to say, the law of exchange of private services and commodities for public services.

 

 Another distinction in regard to human association is of great importance and forces itself upon the student seeking to find the law of human association, and that is, the distinction between land and other natural resources on the one hand, and commodities or the products of men’s industry and genius on the other.

 

 Access to land and natural resources is essential to human existence and also to the production of commodities. If there is a law of human association, it requires a government to regulate and enforce the law, because human beings are individuals and as such they are empirical and either from ignorance, malice, or selfishness are prone to proceed without regard to this law.

 

 The laws of chemistry, exclusive of ions, protons, and electrons, seem to be autonomous so far as we are now informed, and this is also true of the law of physics and of many objective conditions known to men; but the law of human relations is highly subjective and is only enforceable by persuasion, and a government is necessary to illustrate, educate, persuade, and enforce the individual to conform to the law.

 

 Henry George discovered that all of the benefits of government are reflected in the value of the land privately held, tending to raise its value. From this it follows as a corollary that all the evils of bad government are reflected likewise in the value of the land privately held, tending to reduce its value. This is an important law from which the law of human relations is deduced.

 

 William J. Ogden in his book “A Tax Talk To Business Men” has demonstrated that a fairly well conducted government, rendering ordinary public services, can be maintained by the ap­propriation of one-half of the annual land values which it creates. The governments of the State of Maryland and the City of Baltimore, by which Mr. Ogden illustrates his statement, render public ser­vices but have no administration department, and these public ser­vices are greatly interfered with by an unscientific system of taxation. It is, therefore, believed that if these governments were subjected to administration and the interfering tax system abated, that the present public services could be rendered at considerably less than they now cost.

 

 Moses, Spinoza, the Physiocrats, and Henry George and others have caught glimpses of the law of human relation. It remained for Spencer Heath to point out that as specialization is the essential characteristic of human beings, it must be the basis of the law of all human relations. It was then his idea that if there were a specialist who would look after the land and other natural resources, this specialist might simplify this law of human relations. Thus, Mr. Heath presupposes a class of special­ists whom he calls proprietors or landlords, the exclusive function of whom is to make land and natural products valuable to those who can use them.

 

 Immediately it was suggested that this class would have it too easy. However, Mr. Heath made the further discovery that this occupation of a landlord was too difficult and complicated for any group, and presupposed another group of specialists who would be required to perform public services of government, leaving to the group of proprietors or landlords the exclusive duty of administering the leases to their tenants and further administering the aforesaid group called the government. As the administrators of their leases, the proprietors would have the duty and privilege of collecting from their respective tenants the aliquot values or benefits which tenants enjoy as a result of public services and peaceable possession, without any charge other than the annual rental, the landlord to collect this rental and pay out of it the wages of all government servants and keep the difference for the proprietors group for their services in creating tenancies, collecting the rents, providing and administering all the public capital and supervising all public servants and employes.

 

 In most modern governments where taxes are taken from

commodities as well as land rents, that portion of the taxes taken from commodities and used in public improvement contributes towards a capital sum invested in public improvements, the interest on which increases the net rent collected by the landlord or pro­prietor, which would otherwise be required for public improvements.

 

 Wherever we find a landlord enjoying an annual rental from the use of his land for which the landlord renders no services this portion of his annual land rental is the amount of current taxes and the interest on the taxes on commodities or capital other than land which has been taken by taxation and used for public improve­ments or public services, and thereby the landlord is enabled to collect and retain land rent which would otherwise be required for such public improvements or services.

 

 Here is the answer — the correct law of human relations which gives the tenant access to private and public land and natural resources with which to create services, commodities and exchanges at the least cost.

 

 In an ideal state of society, the government group selected and administered by the landlords, voting one vote for every dollar of land rent collected, should provide all public services required by the tenants, which the tenants could not supply without cooperation between themselves and the landlords and between the landlords themselves. The cost of all public services should be borne by the proprietors, and tenants should pay the proprietors the market values of their respective tenancies.

 

 The functions of the landlords are:

 

     (a)  Through the government to administer the

public services so as to increase rents.

 

     (b)  To administer their leases so that the amount

          of the respective annual rentals will be fixed

by competition in the market. Proprietors will

bid against each other to lower the rents;

tenants and prospective tenants will bid against

each other to raise the rents. This is the market

value of the services supplied to a fixed location.

 

      (c) Proprietors in their own democratic organization,

in which they shall each have voting power in

proportion to their respective rent rolls, will

determine what amount of capital in­vestment and

maintenance costs will give the best public

services and therefore yield them the highest rents.

 

      (d) Landlords will create a service department known

as the government, which will furnish the public

services most needed and most in demand and therefore

creating most rent.

 

 This plan presupposes that there will be no taxes paid by tenants, no import tariffs, duties, quotas, or embargos, and that all laws and regulations and restrictions shall be adopted by the government with the approval of the landlords, each having as many votes as he collects dollars in land rents.

 

 It is obvious that under this plan all taxes would be derived from the annual rental value of the land in private use, irrespective of the value of the improvements thereon.

 

 Once it is conceded that all the benefits of government are reflected in annual rental values of land, it is obvious that this annual rental value of the land is the true chart from which the individual can determine the amount of taxes which he should pay; that is to say, if the cost of government is 3% of the total capital value of the land of Maryland, and I own land which has a capital value of $1,000.00, the amount of taxes which I should pay is $30.00 per annum.

 

 The question may be asked, “Would the big landlords be in

a position to deprive tenants or one another of their inherent

rights, such as religious and civil personal liberty and trial by

jury, etc.?”

 The answer to this question is that the blessings of freedom are essential elements in creating annual rental value of land and that the economic interests of the large landlords would tend to increase rather than diminish inherent rights of the individual.

 

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