To summarize in inverse order of statement, the singletax is a proposal to (1) abolish all taxation save upon land values, for the pur pose (a) of improving taxation in the direc tion of simplicity and fairness and in the in terest of industry, by (b) exempting produc tion from taxation, and (c) promoting tenden cies toward socialization of land values; its purpose in aiming to (2) socialize land values being to secure (3) equal rights to land in har mony with individual possession, and thereby to establish (4) equality of opportunity to live and to earn, impossible under land monopoly but an unescapable condition of progress with out poverty under the law of (5) association in equality, which is a natural law of (a) social utility and (b) social morality.
Objections to the Singletax are too numer ous for complete consideration here. Some are frivolous, some are disingenuous, some proceed from misapprehension; but some are sincere, important and at least apparently reasonable. Most professorial economists are counted among objectors, and the economic atmosphere of the universities seems to be hostile. Yet the objections lack both system and comprehensive ness. Most comprehensive of all, perhaps, are those of Walker's and Its Rent,' a book which had vogue for a time but is now obso lete. It has been succeeded in university cir cles by a chapter on ((The Single Tax° in Selig man's (Essays on Taxation.' This chapter, which is limited to the subject in its fiscal as pects, is refuted in chapter XIV of Shearman's (Natural Taxation.) Following is a of current objec tions and answers: (1) Objection: The Single tax would take private property for public use without compensation. Answer: As land value is attributable not to individual industry but to social progress, and attaches not to in dustrial products but to natural resources, it is in fairness social property, for which reason the just objection is not to taking land value for public use without compensation to land owners, but to allowing its continued appro priation by landowners without compensation to the public. (2) Obj.: The fiscal principle upon which the Singletax rests, that of taxation in proportion to individual benefits derived from government, is false, sound fiscal principles re quiring taxation in proportion to each taxpayer's ability to pay. Ans.: (a) Taxation in proportion to ability to pay is a principle of arbitrary tribute-levying; (b) the sound fiscal prin ciple under democratic government is in proportion to governmental benefits. (3) Obj.: Taxation in proportion to governmental bene fits is impracticable, the benefits being too multifarious and subtle for financial measure ment. Ans.: (a) As land values financially reflect all governmental benefits, taxation of land values is in proportion to benefits; (b) it is, at any rate, in proportion to financial bene ,fits, which is the crux of the matter. (4) 4 Obj.: The tax would be shifted from land owner to tenant in higher rent. Ans.: This is (a) unthinkable with reference to unimproved land, and (b) since unimproved land would glut the market under pressure of burdensome taxation, all land would tend downward in market value. (5) Obj.: Unimproved build ing sites do not need the governmental pro tection that police and fire systems provide and which buildings do need; therefore, upon the principle of taxation according to benefits, building sites rather than buildings should be exempt from taxation for police and fire pro tection. Ans.: As the value of building sites is higher with police and fire protection than without, and the value of buildings is no higher (probably lower from the greater com petition in building), it is building sites, not buildings, that are benefited financially by fire and police protection, and which, therefore, should bear the financial burden. (6) Obj.: The Singletax would produce public revenues in excess ofpublic needs. Ans.: Probably not, if schools, highways and other public necessaries and conveniences were adequately provided and properly maintained. (7) Obj.: The Singletax would lack elasticity and there fore be unadaptable to balanced budgets. Ans: (a) This possibility of disadvantage would be outweighed by manifest advantages; (b) it might be obviated by estimating public expendi tures after instead of prior to collection of the public revenues out of which they are paid; (c) estimates of aggregate land values for a fiscal year in advance of expenditures are as trustworthy for budget purposes as estimates of any other taxable values or of all together; (d) some Canadian municipalities have for sev eral years balanced their budgets under a policy of land value taxation alone, and with apparent satisfaction for they have been legally at lib erty to abandon the policy at the beginning of every fiscal year; (e) the problem of balanced budgets is the same with governments as with individuals, namely, to balance expenditures and savings in normal circumstances against normalincomes (in emergencies anticipating income ncome by drafts upon savings and by temporary borrowing), and as land values are essentially social property and therefore the normal income of governments, expenditures in government budgets should balance against land values. (8) Obj.: The Singletax would yield insufficient local revenues for the local needs of poor communities. Ans.: (a) The land values of every community are sufficient for strictly local needs; (b) the maintenance of local schools, highways, etc., are not prop erly local expenses, these services being neces sary to maintain the standards of State and national life as a whole. (9) Obj.: The Single
tax would exempt investors in labor products while taxing investors in land values, though both investments increased in value. Ans.: The latter would be taxed because their in vestments are in values that are produced, maintained and increased by the community and which attach to the site of the community, a common heritage the tide to which investors hold as a government privilege; whereas the investments of the former are in products of industry the title to which investors hold from the producers. (10) Obj.: All values are pro duced, maintained and increased by the com munity. Ans.: The statement is not tenable; but irrespective of that, the values of labor products attach to objects of individual production, whereas land values attach to the natural re sources and sites of production and of life. (11) Obj.: Labor products are no longer ob jects of individual production, individuals be ing unable alone to produce anything in our highly specialized industries. Ans.: This ob jection springs out of confusion of thought, specialized and individual industry not being essentially different, since every specialist con tributes his labor individually so that though millions co-operate to produce, for instance a house, each individual is a housebuilder to the extent 9f his specialized contribution to the result. 4(12) Obj.: The Singletax would be class taxation. Ans.: (a) To take by taxa tion for public revenues property that is legally owned by one class but which morally belongs to all, would not be class taxation but common taxation; (b) it is exemption of such property, either in whole or in part, thereby necessitating taxation of legitimate private property, that is class taxation. (13) Obj.: It is impracti cable to distinguish land values from improve ment values. Ans. (a) Not with reference to unimproved land; (b) unimproved land affords a reasonable basis for calculating the land value of neighboring improved land ; (c) the land value of building lots is easily distinguishable with approximate accuracy from the value of their buildings; (d) the value of mineral deposits is easily distinguishable with approximate ac curacy from the value of their operating plants; (e) the land value of farms is as a rule so low, relatively to their improvement value, that error would usually be negligible; (f) literal accuracy of calculation is no more vital to this fiscal policy than to any other, and (g) un avoidable error would be less unfair to tax payers and less injurious to the community. (14) Obj.: The Singletax would relieve great moneyed interests by placing all governmental expenses upon landowners. Ans.: (a) No land would be taxed unless it were valuable irrespective of its improvements, and (b) valu able land would be taxed only in proportion to its value irrespective of its improvements; (c) as moneyed interests depend for wealth and social not upon money literally but upon titles to mineral deposits, natural forests, highways, public utilities, building sites, water powers, extensive areal of farming and grazing land and other legal privileges most of which are land monopolies, they would be more heavily taxed than they are now, while (d) landowners who are also land users (working farmers, for instance) would be taxed less heavily than now. (15) Obj.: The Singletax would not benefit wage-earners. Ans.: (a) By making the holding of land out of use unprofitable and the use of land profit able the Singletax would stimulate demand for wage-earners, thereby promoting a tendency to steady employment at increasing wages, and (b) by discouraging monopoly of idle land it would tend to make such land common, thereby expanding and maintaining opportuni ties for profitable self-employment. (16) Obj.: To take all land values for public revenue, whether by taxation or otherwise, would be unjust and justice is the prime consideration. Ans.: (a) The Singletax stands or falls by the test of justice; (b) as land is a common herit age which cannot be continuously monopolized without continuous injustice to the landless, irrevocable titles to land are indefensible; (c) as any private titles to land are defensible only upon the ground that social utility requires pri vate possession, land titles are in the nature of public trusts which are violated when possess ors interfere with the best use of the lands they so possess; (d) such possessors are there fore in justice estopped from objecting to land value taxes that would encourage best use; (e) as land values are in the nature of com munity earnings, private ownership of land values cannot in justice be granted in per petuity; (f) as private title to land and private ownership of land values are dependent upon arbitrary governmental grants and not upon moral sanctions, these grants are in justice sub all times to revocation, revision or ex clusive taxation; (g) as it is both impolitic and unjust for governments to tie up their fiscal powers in perpetuity, land titles are at all times subject, both as matter of public policy and as matter of social justice, to taxation in governmental discretion; (h) to assert that land grants cannot justly be revised, revoked or taxed by general rule without compensating grantees or their successors, is in effect to as sert that it cannot justly be done at all, for just rights to compensation rest necessarily upon just rights to that for which the compen sation is exacted.