Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2087

Letter from C. H. Kendal, 29 Belleview Ave., Summit, NJ, to Dr. Frederick W. Roman, published in the monthly The Roman Forum, 214 Loma Drive, Los Angeles CA, Vol.10, No.10 (January 1942). An article on Heath’s ideas had appeared in the September issue, and short letter following below, from Harry W. Olney, had appeared in the October issue (Vol.10, No.7). 

 

 

Dear Dr. Roman:

In your September issue the article by Mr. W. D. Hoffman regarding the ideas of Mr. Spencer Heath as outlined in his pamphlet, have been brought to my attention. I am very much interested and would like to offer my comments as I have made some study of what Mr. Heath has to offer, together with the similar yet varying viewpoints of L. D. Beckwith, Otto Wilcox and others. I feel that all these ideas are in line with much needed research, that we may clarify our positions and in time possibly work out a true science of Economics. Until this is done we are handicapped.

 

 Until a comparatively short time ago Single Taxers presented their positive program advocating first, a Single Tax on land values and second, the abolition of taxes on all improvement values. The first effect, and to too large an extent the entire effect on the public has been that another real estate tax system has been offered. It seems to me that only a relatively few Georgists have considered wider applications as affecting corporate set-ups, State finances, etc. An attempt is being made to lift the entire subject from its tax status into an equitable exchange proposition.

 

 As I see it Mr. Heath advocates first “the abolition of all taxation,” or to cover his position technically he would add “save that on land values.” Beckwith would substitute “Rent” for land values and Georgists generally would accept either term. Mr. Heath then tries to predict the effect of this abolition of taxation and if I understand him he concludes that the result would abolish any levy on land values. In place he sees in the release of taxes an enormously increased demand for sites, that wealth may be produced and also utilized as capital both private and public. There would, therefore, be an increase in Rent (quantitative) viz., a larger amount of private production exchanged equitably for a larger amount of public production. This is in no sense a tax or a levy but a trade. Again I doubt if Georgists in general would take exception nor would they or Mr. Heath differ from Mr. Beckwith that the whole matter is a Rent proposition, the site being the point where the exchange or the exchange of services takes place.

 

Mr. Heath’s emphasis, however, is the necessity of private title to Land (not land value) in order to properly or economically exchange these services. He maintains that the landowner (title holder) has and would have a real function in this exchange and his efforts would and should be rewarded in a wage payment commensurate with his productivity. He does not say that he can capitalize land values but that he would be in the legitimate business of “merchandising” the services. If I understand him correctly, his idea would not abolish the State or the Government but would simplify procedures, the landowner procuring or causing to be procured the best or most service for the Rent. It is quite possible that he or some of the men mentioned above are advocating something new but it seems to me that too many of us have advocated the Government collection or taxation of Rent, abolishing the landlord, etc. To me that is simply Government ownership of land and to Mr. Heath it is Government by politicians instead of by equitable exchange.

                                               C. H. Kendal

 

/The following short letter from Harry W. Olney had appeared in October under the title, “ON THE HEATH PLAN:”/

Dear Dr. Roman:

The outcome of Pittsburgh’s graded tax plan confirms Spencer Heath’s contention that a land-value tax, if not equal to the annual increment, would boost land values by stimulating building and general industry. That plan, enacted into law in 1913, and in full effect by 1925, taxes lands in Pittsburgh at twice the rate on buildings, but does not absorb the full annual increment of land-value, so that land-owners do gain by the general increase in prosperity of the Community.

 

Yours very truly,

 

Harry W. Olney