Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1381

Carbon of a letter from Heath to Harold. S. Buttenheim, The American City, 470 Fourth Avenue, New York City

May 2, 1941

Dear Mr. Buttenheim:

     Please accept my belated thanks for your letter of April 8th acknowledging mine with its enclosures, and sending me The American City for April of this year, containing the article on graded taxation which you referred to. I have read this article with much interest, and also the article on “Land-Value Increment Taxation for Regulation and Revenue” by my excellent friend, Dr. Edwin H. Spengler.

     Both of these articles are in line with the “Single Tax” orthodoxy to which both you and I for so many years subscribed. This orthodoxy happens to be contrary and inconsistent with the constructive principle of Henry George, namely, the employment of ground rent, that which at present exists and that which would arise in enormous quantity upon the abolishment of unnecessary taxation for the financing of the common services and facilities of a community.

     This orthodoxy is based on the assumption that sites and resources could be better distributed by political fiat than by the present operation of free contractual arrangements in the democracy of the open market. It is the erroneous belief that land ownership instead of making land available to all upon equal terms with respect to each other, is the cause of land being held out of use, and that the recompense that the land owners get for performing this distributive service is an unearned increment or income. It is the orthodox view that land ownership prevents the use of land and keeps it idle, and that those who perform or hold themselves ready to perform this distributive service should have no compen­sation for it.

     I am sending you a copy of The Appraisal Journal of April, 1939, containing an article of mine entitled, “Why Does Valuable Land Lie Idle?” Assuming you are interested in all possible answers to this important question, I shall be very much pleased to have you read and give me your comments upon the answer offered in this article as an alternative to the customary assumption that ownership prevents use. If taxation is found to be the real cause of keeping not only labor and capital, but also land out of use, such a discovery must have an important effect upon the assumptions upon which the two articles in the April number of your journal are based, and upon the reasoning that proceeds upon those assump­tions. It should always be remembered that nothing but labor or the proceeds from labor can ever be taxed. Taxation is revenue and all revenue must proceed from labor either directly or out of the hands of those with whom it has been exchanged.

     Dr. Spengler’s article opens with the bold assump­tion of “Values Associated with Land Speculation.” In this he simply follows the common assumption without examining it. Analysis should prove more enlightening than tradition in such matters as it does in all others. Those who are completely satisfied and desire to remain so with their traditions in respect of property in land should carefully avoid any of the analytical examinations of this institution and its functions that I have put in printed or written form.

     Unless you have some special use for the Appraisal Journal I am sending to you, I would appreciate the return of it at your convenience.

                            Yours very sincerely,

 

 

    Spencer Heath

 

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