Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2117

Penciling at page 116 in C.J. Smith, “The Law of Rent: A Comment on the Views of W.R.B. willcox,” Land & Freedom, Vol.39, No.4, July-August 1939, pages 115-116.

 

 

 

 

“Unearned increment, if an ethical view may be imported, is the immoral gain resulting from the pocketing of society’s rent by individuals. Henry George made it clear that rent is a social product and belongs therefore to the social body whose activities produce it.”

 

Society pays rent to somebody for something in exchange.  It can’t own that something and the rent it pays for it too.

 

 

“..the moment we try to keep rent apart as a thing unto itself, the thought arises, ‘Rent of what?’ and of course the answer must be, the rent of land.”

 

 

Security of possession and freedom to trade.