Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1765

Extract from a penned letter (written on two different Dates) from Santa Ana, California to Spencer MacCallum, 11 Waverly Place, New York City

March 26, 1960

 

 

Dear Spencer:

 

     Thanks for the 1958 Md. personal property tax return (copy), filed in 1959. I have made out one like it for 1958 and mailed it in air mail) yesterday. It was due before Jan 1, 1960 but I didn’t know how to fill it out, not having the previous one, and then forgot it. I’m now worrying about the 1959 Fed. Income tax return for the Foundation. I think one must have been made for 1958 and filed before April 15, 1959. So I asked Ada to try to find the copy of it and send it to me to scan as a guide for making a 1959 return. I think the 1958 Federal return had a lot about sales and inventory on it but all I have from Aunt Bea is a list of receipts and expenditures for 1959. If it turns up at the conference on May 7^th that no Federal income tax return for 1959 was sent I’m afraid it won’t help any. I never could attend to any of these tax returns for myself or anything else. I wish we had hired an accountant or something just for that or could do so now. It gives me a fever even to think about it.

 

     Yes, “Baldy” had advised me against any lawyer at the conference. Mr. Doub seems all set to be there and handle everything like a law suit. I will talk it over with Mr. Solomon when I get to N.Y. soon after April 15^th.

 

     I’m glad of your contact with Arthur Holden. Remember me warmly to him and to Mrs. Holden if you see her. She is much interested in public affairs etc. Congratulate him on the publication of some of his economic sonnets.

    

     Glad you have been thinking about the difference between “private” and public services. There’s something about this in the Appendix to C.M.A. that I think is quite in line with your recent thought. Of course, the ultimate is energy (more technically, action). The energy (or action) that is imposed systematically and by force or intimidation on men by other men is called government and mis-called services. All the human energy that is quantified by numerical measurement in the process of contract and exchange and thereby social-ized consists of (or in) services, properly so-called. Some services are directly personal (without the intermediation of property as the subject-matter of contract) but most services are accumulated (potentially) in some kind of property which becomes the subject-matter of contract for the use of it or jurisdiction (or disposal) over it. When the use or jurisdiction that is transferred is unlimited, then the numerical rating of whatever is given or received in exchange for this unlimited use is called price. When the use or jurisdiction that is transferred is limited as to time, then the numerical rating of whatever is given or received in exchange for this time-limited use is called rent. Property, objectively considered, is whatever by convention, custom and common consent (natural law) is or may be the subject-matter of contract. Real property consists in definite portions of the earth and whatever is affixed (appurtenant) thereto or incorporated therein.

     A community is a definite portion of the earth that by common consent of its inhabitants has become property and thereby the subject matter of contract, between its owner or owners and its inhabitants, as to its limited or unlimited use. Such contracts are services to the inhabitants as a whole in that they allocate possession according to ability to produce and thereby their ability to pay rent for this non-violent and non-coercive service of distribution.

     The community (place) is so called by reason of a common defense (com-munito) such as is requisite to its non-violent productive allocation and to all other free productive processes and exchanges among the inhabitants. The services and goods exchanged among the inhabitants are called private services. The services that are enjoyed by the inhabitants in common and not separately from one another are called common or public services and the net advantage — advantages less disadvantages, services less disservices — accruing to any portion of the community and made available by the owner is reflected by the net ground rent (after taxes) that the owner receives. Improvements on sites used or occupied separately and not in common are private improvements. For these a private rent is paid. Improvements on the portions of the community that are not privately occupied are public improvements — public capital. It is for access to and use of these public improvements (including any or all natural advantages) that public or ground (community) rent is paid. Likewise, if any net advantage accrues from political administration of public or community capital, access to and use of such public capital is afforded to the inhabitants of the community through their occupancies of its sites, and for the distribution of such net advantages, if any, some portion of the ground or site rent will be paid.

March 31, 1960

Dear Spencer:

    I think the above is all right but I’m not very well satisfied with it — not as sharp and clear as it should be put. Maybe you could do it better — show the clean sharp line between individual services and common services — and properties. I think there is such a line. On the side of ownership it is clear. Title is in either one or more than one person. But the services supplied by means of the property may be enjoyed by or available to either a small or a large clientele. Perhaps the service is both public and common when practically all persons in a community are recipients of it (as actual or stand-by) whether they specifically contract for it (as tenants) or not.

     Your “footnote” on the length of infancy came three days ago. I am right glad to know how you are thinking things out for yourself. It is a fine thought that pro­tracted infancy can only be incidental to extended maturity.

 

Spencer —                                  April 2, 60

     It’s too bad I haven’t finished and mailed this till now. You might imagine that I think but little and seldom of you — but I guess not. O, yes, that “contact” lens comes in right handy. I was really needing something like that and I’m glad you thought of it.

 

     A wonderful letter from Elfriede two days ago. I enjoyed every bit of it — except the part about me (my) wanting her to move away from 11-C and the part about her going back to Germany   so soon after I return. She is quite a charming person and I hope to enjoy her very much when I return. Make her stop worrying about staying too long. I’m not at all surprised that your mother liked her so much and wants her to visit her. Give my love to Gene and Elfriede — both of them — and Mrs. Pendergast — of the garden.

     Dr. Benson speaks of how he would like you sometime to be a faculty member. Both he and Dr. Platt say (separately) that they would like me to have some non-faculty association with the colleges. Dr. Benson puts it in a formal proposal but with a money string to it. Baldy says to encourage the idea but to go slow. Dr. Platt wrote asking me to visit him in the hospital —”minor surgery” — and I had a fine two hours with him. He opened the subject, saying that was why he wanted to see me. He made no reference to money, and when finally I spoke of it he said his interest in me was entirely separate and independent of anything of that kind. His thoughts, “thinking out loud” although indefinite, are precisely like mine.

                            Nuf now

                                 P.D.