Un-taxing Vital Part Of Single Tax System
Henry George
[Reprinted from The Standard, 21 January,
1888]
LIKE THOSE who oppose us, or at least fail to go with us from sheer
inability to see how the taxation of land values can abolish poverty,
the "limited" Single Taxers' mental gaze seems to be
concentrated on what we propose to do, ignoring what we propose to do
away with. The great benefit of the appropriation of land values to
public use would not be in the revenue that it would give, so much as
in the abolition of restrictions upon the free play of productive
forces that it would involve or permit. It is not by the mere levying
of a tax that we propose to abolish poverty; it is by "securing
the blessings of liberty."
Reduce Taxes
The abolition of all taxes that restrain production or hamper
exchange, the doing away with all monopolies and special privileges
that enable one citizen to levy toll upon the industries of other
citizens, is an integral part of our program. To merely take land
values in taxation for public purposes would not of itself suffice. If
the proceeds were spent in maintaining useless parasites or standing
armies, labor might still be oppressed and harried by taxes and
special privileges. We might still have poverty, and people might
still beg for alms or die of starvation. What we are really aiming at
is . . . "the freedom of the individual to use his labor and
capital in any way that may seem proper to him and will not interfere
with the equal rights of others," and "to leave to the
producer the full fruits of his exertion." To do this it is
necessary to abolish tariffs.
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