Taussig,
Frank W.

ENLARGE

Frank W. Taussig (1859 - 1940) was a U.S. economist and educator, born in St. Louis. He graduated from Harvard in 1879, where remained to become professor of economics in 1892. He served as editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics from 1889 to 1890 and from 1896 to 1935. He was elected president of the American Economic Association in 1904 and 1905.

A tax imposed on a dwelling tends to be borne by the occupier. If the owner is also the occupier, the situation is simple enough; the burden clearly must be borne by him. But if, as is commonly the case, the dwelling is let and is built with the expectation of letting, the burden is likely to be shifted to the occupier (tenant) in the shape of higher rent. the building will not be put up unless the owner has reason to believe that the rents will yield him the current return on investment, and will yield that return net; that is, after payment of all expenses. Taxes are reckoned by him among th expenses. ...A remission of taxes would not necessarily lower rents at once; this consequence would ensue only after the greater return to the owners had stimulated an increase in the supply of houses.

[From: Principles of Economics (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1912), p.518.]

Thomas,
Norman

ENLARGE

Henry George stands high in any list of Americans who have greatly served the world. No man ever wrote on economic matters with a greater passion for humanity or with more genuine eloquence. I am a Socialist and not a single taxer, but Henry George's position that the rental value of land belongs to society is incontroversial, and his method of a land value tax is, at least in urban areas, the best way I know to assert the principle that land is a social resource.

[Source of this quote not identified]

Thoreau,
Henry David

ENLARGE

At present n this vicinity the best part of the land is not private property; the landscape is not owned. But possibly the day will come when ... fences shall be multiplied and man-traps and other engines invented to confine men to the public road, and walking over the surface of God's earth shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman's grounds.

[From: "Essay on Walking," in Excursons (1862), p. 264]

Thrall,
Grant Ian

ENLARGE

ENLARGE

Professor Grant Thrall has been on the faculty of McMaster University in Canada, and the State University of New York at Buffalo. In 1989, he was Resident Scholar of the Homer Hoyt Institute in Washington DC. In 1990, he was Visiting Distinguished Professor at San Diego State University. Since 1983, he has been Professor of Geography at University of Florida.

The following excerpt from Land Use and Urban Forms: The Consumption Theory of Land Rent (1987, p.149) points to the deficiency in data to support the dynamic impact on communities that Henry George forecasted would occur as property improvments (including residential buildings) are exempted from annual taxation and the proportion of location rent collected via taxation increases. This passage is included here as an important theoretical issue to resond to for proponents of the public collection of rent. Thrall wrote:

... the property tax would return to the community exactly the value that land received because of the community. This was demonstrated in the above Consumption Theory of Land Rent analysis to be a special case of the open city (one whose residents are willing and able to move in and out). It is not, then, surprising that empirical evidence has failed to confirm the Henry George theorem; empiricists should look for support in those cities that conform most closely to being open.

Tobin,
James

ENLARGE

I think in principle it's a good idea to tax unimproved land, and particularly capital gains (windfalls) on it. Theory says we should try to tax items with zero or low elasticity, and those include sites.

[source not identified]

Tocqueville,
Alexis de

ENLARGE

The American man of the people has conceived a high idea of political rights because he has some; he does not attack those of others, in order that his own may not be violated. Whereas the corresponding man in Europe would be prejudiced against all authority, even the highest, the American uncomplainingly obeys the lowest of his officials.

[From: "The Advantages of Democratic Government," Democracy in America (1848), Harper & Row edition, 1966, Vol.I, Chap.6, p.238]

Tocqueville,
Alexis de

Democratic government makes the idea of political rights penetrate right down to the least of citizens, just as the division of property puts the general idea of property rights within reach of all. That, in my view, is one of its greatest merits.

[From: "The Advantages of Democratic Government," Democracy in America (1848), Harper & Row edition, 1966, Vol.I, Chap.6, p.239]

Tocqueville,
Alexis de

In aristocracies rents are not paid in money only, but also by respect, attachment, and service. In democracies money only is paid.

[From: "Rents Raised and Terms of Leases Shortened," Democracy in America (1848), Harper & Row edition, 1966, Vol.II, Chap.6, p.580]

Tocqueville,
Alexis de

Any revolution is more or less a threat to property. Most inhabitants of a democracy have property. And not only have they got property, but they live in the conditions in which men attach most value to property.

[From: "Why Great Revolutions Will Become Rare," Democracy in America (1848), Harper & Row edition, 1966, Vol.II, Chap.21, p.636]

Tocqueville,
Alexis de

In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned.

[From: "Why Great Revolutions Will Become Rare," Democracy in America (1848), Harper & Row edition, 1966, Vol.II, Chap.21, pp.638-639]

Todd,
Ralph H.

[Ralph H. Todd is Director, Center for Applied Urban Research, University of Nebraska, Omaha]

Obviously, heavy taxes on the location will not discourage or inhibit improvements; on the contrary, heavy taxes on locations should put effective pressure on the owners to put their sites to better use. A heavier tax on unimproved land would allow a city to expand in an orderly manner without relying on growth policies and huge subsidies, by simply allowing the profit moive and the free enterprise market system to function more effectively.

[Source of this quote not identified]

Tolstoy,
Leo
(1828-1910)

ENLARGE

Tolstoy attempted, unsuccessfully, to convince Czar Nicholas II to introduce reforms that incorporated the proposals of Henry George. Of Henry George, he wrote:

People do not argue with the teachings of [Henry] George, they simply do not know it. And it is impossible to do otherwise with his teaching, for he who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree. ...Solving the land question means the solving of all social questions. ...Possession of land by people who do not use it is immoral -- just like the possession of slaves.

Solving the land question means the solving of all social questions. ...Possession of land by people who do not use it is immoral -- just like the possession of slaves.

[Source not identified]

Tolstoy,
Leo
(1828-1910)

"Certain persons have driven a herd of cows, on whose milk they live, into an enclosure. The cows have eaten and trampled the forage, they have chewed each others' tails, and they low and moan, seeking to get out. But the very men who live on the milk of these cows have set around the enclosure plantations of mint, they have cultivated flowers, laid out a race-course, a park, and a lawn-tennis ground, and they do not let out the cows lest they should spoil these arrangements. …The cows get thin. Then the men think that the cows may cease to yield milk, and they invent various means for improving the condition of the cows. They build sheds over them, they gild their horns, they alter the hour of milking, they concern themselves with the treatment of old and invalid cows … but they will not do the one thing needful, is to remove the barrier and let the cows have access to-S pasture."

[Leo Tolstoy, A Great Iniquity]

Tolstoy,
Leo
(1828-1910)

"The only indubitable means of improving the position of the workers, which is at the same time in conformity with the will of God, consists in the liberation of the land from its usurpation by the landlords. …The most just and practicable scheme, in my opinion, is that of Henry George, known as the single-tax system."

[Leo Tolstoy, To the Working People, xiii]

Tolstoy,
Leo
(1828-1910)

"The injustice of the seizure of the land as property has long ago been recognised by thinking people, but only since the teaching of Henry George has it become clear by what means this injustice can be abolished."

[Leo Tolstoy, Letter to Single-Tax Leagues of Australia]

Tolstoy,
Leo
(1828-1910)

"It is Henry George's merit that he not only exploded all the sophism whereby religion and science justify landed property and pressed the question to the farthest proof, which forced all those who had not stopped their ears to acknowledge the unlawfulness of ownerships in land, but also that he was the first to indicate a possibility of solution for the question. He was the first to give a simple, straightforward answer to the usual excuses made by the enemies of all progress, who affirm that the demands of progress are illusions, impracticable, inapplicable. The method of Henry George destroys these excuses by so putting the question that by to-morrow committees might be appointed to examine and deliberate on his scheme and its transformation into law."

[Leo Tolstoy, Letter to a German Reformer]

Tolstoy,
Leo
(1828-1910)

"The land is common to all. All have the same right to it; but there is good land and bad land, and everyone would like to take the good land. How is one to get it justly divided? In this way: he who will use the good land must pay those who have got no land of the value of the land he uses," Nekhludoff went on, answering his own question. ..."Well," he had a head, this George," siad the oven builder, moving his brows. "he who has good land must pay more."

[Leo Tolstoy, Resurrection, Book II., Chap. 9]

Tolstoy,
Leo

If the new Czar were to ask me what I should advise him to do, I would say to him: Use your autocratic power to abolish landed property in Russia, and to introduce the single-tax system, and then give up your power and give the people a liberal constitution.

[From: Progressive Review, August, 1897, p. 419, note]

Turgot,
Anne Robert Jacques

ENLARGE

The labor of the tiller of the soil gives the first impulse. That which his work makes the land produce beyond his personal needs is the sole fund for the wages which all the other members of society receive in exchange for their work.

[From: On the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (1766), Sec. 5]

Turgot,
Anne Robert Jacques

Land is always the first and only source of all wealth.

[From: On the Formation and Distribution of Wealth (1766), Sec. 55]

URBAN LAND INSTITUTE

In the redevelopment situation the site value tax system acts to increase the supply of sites for redevelopment. ...The site value tax system thus operates to accelerate the transition of marginal properties to the status of economic redevelopment sites. ...Probably the most important effects of a site value tax system is the pressure on owners to sell their property for redevelopment if they cannot or will not redevelop it themselves.

[from: Research Report No. 19]

Urbanski,
Adam

ENLARGE

The materials about the two-rate real estate tax that you left for me are quite instructive and persuasive. It makes good sense to pursue the changes you advocate and I would be glad to lend my support to the effort.

[President, Rochester Teachers Association, from a letter to Marvin Morris, July 10, 1991]

Vauban,
Marshall

Marshall Vauban published in 1707 his Projet d'une Dixme Royale. His travels through France had given him an opportunity to see the poverty of the peasants, which he believed was due largely to heavy and unequal taxation. He proposed a reform of France's tax system in the form of a dixme royle, or royal tithe. This was a comprehensive proposal for simiplifying the existing tax system calling for proportional taxes on the produce of land and on the revenue of wealth in general.

Vaughn,
Herbert
(Cardinal)

Cardinal Herbert Vaughn, who was the spiritual leader of the Mill Hill Order of England, arrived in the United States in 1871. By the latter part of 1888, Cardinal Vaughn formed St. Joseph Seminary in Baltimore.

Without ties to bind the people to the land, they have been driven, especially of late years, in ever increasing multitudes to the towns. Here they have herded apart from the better classes, forming an atmosphere and a society marked on the one hand by an absence of all the elevating influences of wealth, education and refinement, and on the other by the depressing presence of almost a dead level of poverty, ignorance and squalor. they are not owners either of the scraps of land on which they live or of the tenements which cover them; but they are rackrented by the agents of absentee landlords, who know less of them than Dives knew of Lazarus.

[From: An Inagural Address to the Annual Conference of the Catholic Truth Society, Stockport; published in the St. Vincent de Paul Quarterly, New York, November, 1899; p. 286]

Vickrey,
William

ENLARGE

William Vickrey, in 1993 a Professor-Emeritus, Columbia University and President of the American Economic Assocation, made the following remarks at the Henry George School in New York:

Economists are almost unanimous in conceding that the land tax has no adverse side effects. ...Landowners ought to look at both sides of the coin. Applying a tax to land values also means removing other taxes. This would so improve the efficiency of a city that land values would go up more than the increase in taxes on land.

Landlords ought to be in favor of this proposal. If taxes on structures were removed, land values in New York City would go up much more.

There is also a strong equity argument in its favor. Consider the example of a tennis court. Even though people playing tennis have no use for electric, water and communication facilities, these services must be provided anyway. ...In effect we have to pay for utilities twice: once to the provider and once to the landowners who benefit by them.

Villard,
Oswald Garrison

ENLARGE

Oswald Garrison Villard, publisher of The Nation in the early twentieth century, wrote:

Few men made more stirring and valuable contributions to the economic life of modern America than did Henry George. What he has written about protection and free trade is as fresh and as valuable today as it was at the hour in which it was penned.

Voltaire
(Francois-Marie Arout de Voltaire)

ENLARGE

In the Age of Enlightenment, Voltaire gave the following words to one of his characters, Candide:

The fruits of the earth are a common heritage of all, to which each man has equal right.

Voltaire
(Francois-Marie Arout de Voltaire)

Each individual owns that part of the national territory and revenue which the laws secure to him, and no possession or enjoyment can at any time be withdrawn from the operation of the law.

[From: Dictionnaire Philosophique, tit. Droit Cononique, Sec. 2, Oeuvres, Vol. LIV., p. 138]

Voskuil,
W.H.

In 1930, he held the position of Assistant Professor of Industry and the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Land is valued because of its productive power, ... widely defined to include its usefulness for dwellings, offices, and factory sites, crops, forests, and mineral products. Differences in land values arise out of differing degrees of productive power for each or any of the above purposes..

[From: "The Indestructible Properties of Land," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. CXLVIII, No. 237, March, 1930, p.50]

Voskuil,
W.H.

The productivity of urban lands consists of benefits derived from the use of such land for residential purposes, office buildings, factory sites, terminal facilities, and so forth. The properties of the land which give it value are standing-room and situs. By situs is meant the location of a plot of land with reference to those activities of man in its vicinity which of its use for profit-taking purposes.

[From: "The Indestructible Properties of Land," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. CXLVIII, No. 237, March, 1930, p.54]

Walker,
Francis A.

ENLARGE

First President of the American Economic Association:

A highway man points a pistol at my head, but offers to spare me if I shall give him $500, which I proceed to do with the greatest alacrity. In sparing my life he renders me the greatest possible service. ...Still the question will arise, "How came the highway man to be in a position to do me such a vital service, and, after all, what right has he to what way my $500?" In like manner, while the owner of land ... undoubtedly does me a great service [the use of the land] ... it will still be rational and pertinent for me to inquire, at least under my breath, what business he has with the land, more than I or any one else.

Walker,
Francis A.

The unqualified ownership of land thus established (viz., "in a way which in this age would be regarded as monstrous and corrupt"), enables the land-owning class to reap a wholly unearned benefit at the expense of the general community.

[From: Political Economy, Part VI, Chap.7, Sec. 418]

Wall Street Journal editors

In an article appearing March 5, 1987, the Wall Street Journal published this:

As explained in the greatest economics treatise ever written by an American -- Henry George's "Progress and Poverty" (1879) -- money diverted to pay for the use of natural resources is like a dead weight or tax on the productive factors in the economy, capital and labor.

Wallace,
Alfred Russel

ENLARGE

Unrestricted private property in land is inherently wrong, and leads to serious and wide-spread evils.

[From: Land Nationalization, Chap. VIII, p. 229]

Wallace,
Alfred Russel

Unrestricted private property in land gives to individuals a large proportion of the wealth created by the community at large.

[From: Land Nationalization, Chap. VIII, p. 231-2]

Wallace,
Alfred Russel

We permit absolute possession of the soil of our country, with no legal rights of existence on the soil to a vast majority who do not possess it.

[From: Malay Archipelago (1969), Vol. II, p. 464]

Wedgwood,
Josiah

ENLARGE

"It was in 1904 when Henry George and Progress and Poverty wre both enjoying a great popularity that Josiah Wedgwood fell in love with both to remain a stout and incendiary Georgist to the end of his life. Nearly forty years later he wrote a matchless tribute to his leader, the greatest single influence inhis life:

"From those magnificent periods, unsurpassed in the whole of British literature, I acquired the gift of tongues. Ever since 1905, I have known there was a man from God and his name was Henry George. I had no need henceforth for any other faith."

Whelan,
James

ENLARGE

James Whelen, mayor of Atlantic City, New Jersey, wrote in N.J. Municipalities, January 1998, p.18:

Let us tax land, not improvements. While the notion that owners of vacant land would pay the same tax as owners of a fully developed office complex next door may seem strange at first, it would be a great anti-speculation tool that would encourage development.

Whitlock,
Brand
(1869-1934)

ENLARGE

Brand Whitlock was born in Urbana, Ohio, in 1869. He became a journalist and worked for the Chicago Herald. He was later employed by John P. Altgeld, the reforming governor of Illinois. Whitlock also worked closely with Samuel Jones, the radical mayor of Toledo.
br> Whitlock became increasingly involved in politics and eventually served four terms as mayor of Toledo (1906-14). Like Samuel Jones, Whitlock developed a reputation as an honest and efficient mayor. He served as United States ambassador to Belgium during the First World War.

Whitlock expressed his frustration with the inability of so many so-called public servants to rise above the vested interests who used personal and corporate wealth to see to that the status quo -- and their deep-rooted privileges, remained in place:

Henry George's proposition, the Single Tax, will wait, I fancy, for years, since it is so fundamental and mankind never attacks fundamental problems until it has exhausted all the superficial ones.

[source not provided]

Whitman,
Walt

ENLARGE

Many sweating, ploughing, threshing, and then the chaff for payment receiving,
A few idly owning, and they the wheat continually claiming.

[From: "Song of Myself," in Leaves of Grass, p. 68]

Willis,
Nathaniel Parker
(1806-1867)

Nathaniel Parker was born in Portland, Maine the eldest son of a newspaper proprietor in Boston. After attending Boston grammar school and Phillips Academy at Andover, he entered Yale College in October 1823. In 1829 he started the American Monthly Magazine, which was continued from April of that year to August 1831, but failed to achieve success. On its discontinuance he went to Europe as foreign editor and correspondent of the New York Mirror. To this journal he contributed a series of letters, which, under the title Pencillings by the Way,/i>, were published at London in 1835.

How can you buy the right to exclude at will every other creature made in God's image from sitting by this brook, treading on this carpet of flowers, or lying listening to the birds in the shade of these glorious trees -- how can I sell it to you? is a mystery not understood by the Indian, and dark, I must say, to me.

[From: Voices of the True-Hearted (1846), Philadelphia, p. 98]

Wilson,
Woodrow
(1856-1924)

ENLARGE

All this country needs is new and sincere body of thought in politics, coherently, distinctly and boldly uttered by men who are sure of their ground. The power of men like Henry George seems to me to mean that; and why should not men who have sane purposes avail themselves of this thirst and enthusiasm for better, higher, more hopeful purpose in politics than either of the present, moribund parties can give?

(Quoted from "Life and Letters of Woodrow Wilson" by Raoy Stanndard Baker, Doubleday, Page & Co.)

Winstanley,
Gerrard (Jerrard)

ENLARGE

Winstanley was the primary leader of the 17th century English agrarian reformers, the Diggers. In 1649, he wrote:

The Earth (which was made to be a Common Treasure of relief for all) has been hedged in to Enclosures by the teachers and rulers, and others have been made Servants and Slaves: And that Earth that is within this Creation, made a Common Storehouse for all, is bought and sold, and kept in the hands of a few. ...Though a man be brought up in the land, yet he must not work for himself but for him that bought the Land; He that has no Land must work for small wages for those who call the Land theirs.

Winstanley,
Gerrard

Here, O thou Righteous Spirit of the whole creation, and judge who is the thief, he who takes away the freedom of the common earth from me, which is my creation-rights; ...or I, who take the common earth to plant upon for my free livelihood, endeavoring to live as a free commoner in a free commonwealth, in righteousness and peace.

And is not this slavery, say the people, that though there be land enough in England to maintain ten times as many people as are in it; yet some must beg of their brethren, or work in hard drudgery for day wages for them, or starve, or steal, and so be hanged out of the way, as men not fit to live on the earth?

[From: The Law of Freedom in a Platform or True Magistracy Restored (1652)]

Winstanley,
Gerrard

We demand, yea or no, whether the earth with her fruits, was made to be bought and sold from one to another? And whether one part of mankind was made lord of the land, and another part a servant by the Law of Creation before the Fall.

[From: a Letter to Lord Fairfax (1649), cited in the New Age, 24 February, 1898, p.333]

Wood,
Robert
(1924 - 2005)

ENLARGE

Robert Wood, was Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, who also taught political science at M.I.T., after which he served as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, under President Lyndon Johnson, wrote in Domestic Affairs, May 1991:

What has pushed the price of housing out of reach for many Americans is the spiraling cost of land. Over the past thirty years, land values have increased three times faster than the consumer price index; they now exceed one-quarter of the total cost of the typical housing unit.

Our persistent practice of taxing real estate development more than undeveloped or underdeveloped land nad our failure to recapture the costs of new roads and community facilities that open up vacant land for development have been major impediments to the provision of affordable housing. In short, what urban America needs most is a land reform program.

WORLD BANK

A more effective system of agricultural land taxation would offer one means of obtaining a reasonable contribution from the richer members of the rural community without destroying incentives related to agricultural output.

In designing a system of land taxation, the Government should focus not only on raising revenues, but also on nonfiscal developmental objectives, such as distributing income better in the rural areas, using agricultural land more effectively.

Wright,
Frank Lloyd
(1869-1959)

ENLARGE

Wright, one of the most heralded architects in United States history, wrote in The Living City (c. 1958, p.162):

Henry George showed us ... the only organic solution of the land problem ...

Wright,
Frank Lloyd

Frank Lloyd Wright delivered an address to the Henry George School Commerce and Industry luncheon on 4October, 1951, in Chicago. In that address, he said:

"Democracy can be only one thing: a thing that would enable a man like Henry George to hae had some effect in his day. Democracy is, inevitably -- the gospel of individuality. It is the supreme encouragement and protection of the individual as such, first of all... Men like Henry George knew what it meant and fought for a basis for it. It's the highest and finest ideal on earth today or in the mind of man because it is predicated on the basis of freedom."

Yat-sen,
Sun

ENLARGE

The teaching of Henry George will be the basis of our program of reform. ...The (land tax) as the only means of supporting the government is an infinitely just, reasonable and equitably distributed tax, and on it we will found our new system. The centuries of heavy and irregular taxation for the benefit of the Manchus have shown china the injustice of any other system of taxation.

[source not identified]

Yat-Sen,
Sun

Sun Yat-Sen realized that solving the many problems of the Chinese people was intimately linked to the land question. In the Principle of the Peoples' Livelihood, published in 1924, he wrote:

When modern, enlightened cities levy land taxes, the burdens upon the common people are lightened, and many other advantages follow. If Canton city should now collect land taxes according to land values, the government would have a large and steady source of funds for administration. The whole place could be put into good order

But at present, the rising land values in Canton all go to the landowners themselves -- they do not belong to the community. The government has no regular income, and so to meet expenses it has to levy all sorts of miscellaneous taxes upon the common people. This burden upon the common people is too heavy; they are always having to pay out taxes and so are terribly poor -- and the number of poor people in China is enormous. The reasons for the heavy burdens upon the poor are the unjust system of taxation practiced by the government, and the unequal distribution of land power and the failure to solve the land problem. If we can put the land tax completely into effect, the land problem will be solved and the common people will not have to endure such suffering.

Yinger,
John

ENLARGE

Professor Yinger of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University has provided his students with extensive class notes on land markets.

Zacharia,
Karl E.
(Professor)

Zacharia was a professor at Heidelberg University, writing on the nature of ancient law. Other biographical information has not been found.

Nature has not herself divided the good things of the earth between individual men, and this is the source of all wrangling and quarreling among them.

[From: Vierzig Bucher vom Staate (1841), Book XXI, Part I, Divison 1, Sec. 2, p. 146]

Zola,
Emile

ENLARGE

As, I see it clearly before my eyes, the city of justice and happiness! ...No more idlers of any kind, and hence no more landlords supported by rent, no more men of fortune kept like mistresses by fortune -- in short, no more luxury and no more misery! Ah, is not this the ideal of equity, the supreme wisdom, no privileged classes, and none doomed to wretchedness; everyone creating his welfare by his own effort, the average of human welfare!

[From: L'Argent, Chap. XII, pp. 438-9 (Last words of Sigismond)]

Zuckerman,
Mortimer B.

ENLARGE

Henry George, the great 19th-century economist, put it best: "Protective tariffs are as much applications of force as are bockading squadrons, and their objective is the same -- to prevent trade. The difference between the two is that blockading squadrons are a means whereby nations seek to prevent their enemies from trading; protective tariffs are a means whereby nations attempt to prevent their own people from trading. What protection teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.

[From an editorial, "That Other Deficit," in U.S. News & World Report, 23 December 1985]