Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1555

Carbon of a letter from Heath to Roscoe Pound, 6 Beacon Street, Boston 8, Massachusetts

August 15, 1955

 

 

Dear Sir:

     Some time ago, you were kind enough to let me have your not unfavorable reaction to my suggestion that in a community in which the various owners of the basic realty were so organized as to conduct the community affairs themselves, without resort to any political methods, it might be possible and indeed profitable for such an authority to administer the common services and properties solely in the interest of the inhabitants, thereby creating a natural public revenue in the form of rent in recompense of their proprietary administration.

     From this point of view, the proprietors holding undivided interests in the whole community instead of separate and unorganized holdings, it seems that com­munity services could be created and distributed precisely as any corporate organization serves its clientele — its purchasing public — through serving them instead of by taxing and otherwise coercing them, the revenue and profit received being the market value of the services performed.

     Thinking you might find it congenial to explore further the possibility suggested, I am sending you three little booklets which you may find interesting in an otherwise idle hour. Also, I enclose a short criticism of the contrary view as set out most persuasively upon religious and moralistic grounds by the Rev. Dr. Edward McGlynn a good many years ago.

     Please let me compliment you upon your valuable introduction to Eugene C. Gerhart’s excellent volume, American Liberty & Natural Law, recently at hand.

     Again with profound respect, I am,

 

Sincerely yours,

 

SH/m

Enc:  Triple booklets on Property in Land

       “The Trojan Horse of ‘Land Reform’”