Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2892

Letter from John C. Weaver, Program Director, The Allegheny Roundtable, 1625 Shady Avenue, Pittsburgh 17, Pennsylvania, May 29, 1963, to Heath at Waterford Inn, Waterford, Virginia; reply by Heath dated June 5, 1963 and transcribed and mailed with covering letter by Spencer MacCallum, c/o Lowi, 2146 Toscanini Drive, San Pedro, California, July 11, 1963. Enclosure from Weaver referred to, with some penned and penciled commentary by Heath and MacCallum, is with originals.

 

 

 

 

Dear Mr. Heath:                                 May 29, 1963

 

Since I last corresponded with you, with special reference to the article which I offered to the Freeman magazine, I should first mention that the editors said they would hold the article for possible future use, but advising me to try to use it else­where. It became obvious that they did not intend to use it — which confirms my fear that our “conservative” or even “libertarian” groups will remain an extremist element with­out conceding that there is something missing in their philosophy of free enterprise, and hence making possible a new way of bridging the gulf between them and the well-intentioned social democrats.

 I have continued to try an approach to the decision-making groups in Pittsburgh, — the allied professional planners and the great industrialists and bankers who have given up hope of genuine free enterprise and concentrate on getting back from Washington as much as pos­sible of the wealth which is taken from them, using it for urban redevelopment projects. You will see from the latest of my series of arti­cles the attempt I am making to find a common language with these groups. I hope to say a good deal more about your unique contribution to this new approach.

 

Sincerely yours,

/s/ John C. Weaver

 

 

Dear Mr. Weaver:       June 5, 1963  /transcribed and mailed July 11/

 

Delighted at your references to my Citadel, Market and Altar in your enthusiastic letter. You may quote from it as much as you like. My grandson, Spencer Heath MacCallum, is carrying on in the Department of Anthro­pology at the University of Chicago. I am pretty inac­tive now, but happy that proprietary administration of public services for profit at all levels now has a good start. (________) In Latin America there is absence of free contract, of organization of land owners for administrative profit. See page 97 in CM&A, and 135.

 Profit through service is the right incentive of all organization. The present development of shopping centers — some of them good sized towns — is a sign of our times. They sell everything, including in large complexes the use of land, properly zoned. Vide Park La Brea in Los Angeles — no revenue but rent. It has been proposed that they supply their inhabitants with even some tax services.

 We should forget all about coercive taxation and think of the coming public revenue to proprietary corporations as the _____ market price of the location and the services they sell. Also, let us eschew public services as moral and think of all services as forms of objective love. Public morality has always rested on coercion or worse.

 And a lot more than this ______

 

 

 

Dear Mr. Weaver:                           July 11, 1963

As you may be aware, my grandfather, Spencer Heath, has been in precarious health for the past year and for that length of time has not attempted any correspondence. Several weeks ago, therefore, I was surprised and pleased to receive a letter addressed in his own hand. It contained a short note together with your article, S-7 63, and your letter of May 29th to him, and a draft of the enclosed letter to you written and corrected in long hand. On later reflec­tion, it was not clear to me whether he had already had someone transcribe it and send it to you, or whether he wished me to do this. So I have trans­cribed it and send it to you, risking that it dupli­cates a letter you have already received. In several places where I could not decipher my grandfather’s hand, I have indicated this.

 I enjoyed reading your entire article, S-7 63, on “THE PITTSBURGH IDEA — Why Not More of It?” It occurred to me to wonder if a conscious loan program would be necessary to ease the transition for the land owner in the transfer of taxes from improvements onto land. You mentioned the stabilizing effect on land values of such a change in Australia and New Zealand. With proper timing of the change, might not the benefit to land more than offset the increased amount of taxes?

 I thought your discussion on pages 6,7 was one of the more thoughtful analyses in brief of my grandfather’s thought that I have seen.

 With very best wishes,

 

Spencer H. MacCallum

 

Encl.