Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2368

Letter from Gilbert M. Tucker, President, Economic Education League, 128 State Street, Albany, NY

March 16, 1954

 

 

Dear Mr. Heath:

I have been going over again your circular “How Come That We Finance World Communism?”, and since you ask for criticism I am going to give it to you. I still don’t have any idea what your plan is or what you are talking about.

 Tenet No. 1.  I agree with you. So what? Why drag this argument in? Why talk about politicians in office being God’s divinely appointed deputies for distributing land? To me this is just nonsense. Then you talk about the real-estate markets of free communities. I don’t think the communities are free when the land is monopolized and it always is because every piece of land is individual and cannot possibly be duplicated.

 Tenet No. 2.  I agree with you that the presence of population creates land values but you have a complete non-sequitur when you say that the teeming hordes of Asia would receive most of the rent. This is perfect nonsense because the people that create it don’t get it there any more than they do here. The values which the people create are seized by the landholders here and in India alike. All this talk about land value and whether land serves men or men serve land, or however you express it, seems to me just talk and has no bearing at all upon the case. When you go on to the discussion of the service of distri­buting it now you are saying something, although it means very little because there is no distribution of land that I can see. It is simply sold and leased in the open market and of course, as in the selling of any commodity or the leasing of any commodity, both parties to the contract expect to make a profit. But surely the landowner gives no service in permitting other people to use that portion of our common heritage from the Creator which he has appropriated to his own use and then exacting a toll for it. As a matter of fact in a great many cases the landowner does not permit anyone to use it. He won’t use it himself nor will he let anyone else and that’s why we have slums and the shortage of hous­ing. We would have a decent distribution of land or an equaliza­tion which would compensate for the distribution under the collec­tion of ground rent. The landowner gives no service whatever. You say that the value of land is created by the public service. Surely then those that hold the land ought to pay for the public service which they receive. Then further on you speak of the service which the landowner gives in distributing it. What service do you mean? What service does the man who holds a piece of land with disreputable old slum buildings on it and keeps it for years and then profits by the increase in value, what service does he render to anyone? The last sentences in this tenet two paragraph it seems to me are just words.

 Tenet No. 3. This contains the same vague talk about distribut­ing the land to the benefit of society. How and why and when? Land value you say is the value received for this distributing service but there isn’t any distributing service. So what? furthermore rent is not recompense freely paid for it. Under monopoly, rent is extorted and not freely paid in a great many cases.

 Tenet No. 4.  I don’t get your point. Again you don’t make it clear.  It is all built around the so-called distributive services which simply do not exist. You say taxes cannot be wholly loaded onto the prices offered for any services. Well, I disagree with you. In some cases they are so done and that is the vicious part of it. We wish to get rid of taxing entirely and collect simply a fair and just voluntary payment for the tenure of land. You surely must realize that what is often called “the single tax” is really what Fillebrown said was “Not a single tax. It is getting away from taxes that is our aim and collecting rent instead”.

 Tenet No. 5. Of course the rent received by landowners is not a payment for any services they supply to society. That’s just the trouble. They supply no services. They do nothing, just put the brakes on legitimate services and legitimate distribution. You talk about his social service of distribution. How? I don’t understand it.

 The next to the last paragraph beginning with “Henry George” I cannot understand either. How in the world you can call his policy reactionary I can’t imagine. What does it react to? You talk about putting the administration back into the hands of the same tax-taking, war-making authority. How did he want to do this?

 Perhaps I am dumb but it does seem to me as if you didn’t grasp the Henry George idea at all. I wonder if you confuse it with land nationalization? You certainly seem to imply that the George program would interfere with tenure and title and you also seem to imply that there must be some distribution of land instead of simple trading and open contractual relations. I see no more reason for talking about land distribution than talking of distribution of bread or automobiles or anything else.

 Again I repeat that I simply do not get your point at all and do not know what you are driving at. I should like very much to know exactly what you propose, what your practical program is but I have never been able to get this clear in my thick head.

Cordially yours,

                            /s/ Gilbert M. Tucker

                            President

 

gmt/k