Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2354

Letter from Timothy Joyce, Editor, AHEAD, The Young Liberal Monthly Magazine, Liberal Party, 58 Victoria Street, London, S.W.1

December 29, 1953

 

 

Dear Sir,

I have today received your letter of 3rd December. Will you please note that my home address is as above, and that a letter addressed to me at the University of Cambridge will not normally reach me. Your letter was re-directed five times.

 I have read the literature which you enclosed and can safely assert that I have never read so much nonsense in my life. I shall have pleasure in lending this literature to those of my friends and acquaintances who are interested in the subject of Land Value Taxation, as I am certain it will clinch the argument for them – though not, perhaps, in the manner you anticipate.

 “Progress and Poverty reviewed” and, even more so, “How come that we finance world communism?” are so riddled with fallacies that it would be a waste of my time to mention even a very few of them. I will content myself with pointing out that such of their arguments that are valid are arguments against land nationalisation as advocated by the left wing of the British Labour Party, and certainly not arguments against land value taxation. I quote your “How come that we finance world communism?” the last paragraph on p. 2: “Does it follow that governments by politicians in office are God’s divinely appointed deputies for distributing it? Are not the real-estate markets of free communities more equitable for this than the elected or appointed incumbents of local city halls or of a distant centralised bureaucracy?” Who on earth suggested that they weren’t, and who suggested that the distribution of land should be undertaken by the state? Not the land-value taxers. George states – in a typical manner, in progress and poverty – “I do not propose either the purchase or the confiscation of private property in land….Let the individu­als who now hold it still retain, if they want to, possession of what they are pleased to call their land. Let them continue to call it their land. Let them “buy and sell, and bequeath and devise it. It is not necessary to confiscate land; it is only necessary to confiscate rent”. Followers of George have always maintained that the community has no right to dispose of land as it thinks fit.

 As to your own assertions: I am unable to understand what you mean when you say that land rent is the reward to the landlord for performing the social service of distribution; exactly what is this distribution, how would it be impaired by land value taxation, and in what way is land rent a reward for this “service”? I am not aware that the community as a whole is particularly grateful to landlords for performing this service, whatever it may be! As to the proposals of the “Science and Society foundation”, that all social services should be handed over to a ruling landed elite, to do as they wish with them, in a totally “voluntary” manner, I really think I would prefer full-blooded Communism.

 Since you say that your work is carried on solely in the interest of public enlightenment, and would welcome any suggestions I can offer, I will gladly give you some:

 

1. You will do no good to your cause – in England, at any rate – by praising Senator McCarthy or by mentioning the phrase “Land Communism”. I note that you praise McCarthy implicitly on page 6 of “How come that we finance world Communism?”. As you may know, the name McCarthy is hated and despised throughout England, and even the most right-wing of Conservatives would not have a good word for him. The taunt of “witch-hunting” has benefited the real Communists in this country very materially, as it has in other European countries, and humorously McCarthy is described as “Moscow’s secret weapon”. Similarly, you do yourself an immense disservice by calling Georgeists “Land Communists”. I hope I have demonstrated to you that such a description is, in any case, incorrect; and even if it were correct it would be impolitic of you to use it. The last way to gain support in England is to brand one’s opponent as a Communist.
2. I would strongly advise you to have your pamphlets ‘vetted’ by someone who knows a little economic theory. So much ignorance of elementary economics is displayed by them – in particular with regard to your discussion of Ricardo’s theory of rent – that this is decidedly necessary.
3. I would also strongly advise you to re-write your pamphlets, omitting the thousands of apparently irrelevant terms of abuse. These will not convince anyone of anything – it will only give rise to the impression that your case is so thin that you find it impossible to present it rationally.

Yours faithfully,

/s/ Timothy Joyce

Editor