Effective Georgist Action

William H. Pitt

[Reprinted from Land & Liberty, Winter 1996]

THE PLEA by W.J. Barber (Land and Liberty, Autumn 1995) is for a national -- I assume English -- political campaign to put Georgist legislation onto the Statute Books.

A better place for the effort might be New Zealand -- an unsubdivided, compact and cohesive nation where the Governor is an appointed chief executive officer; there is no obstructive and landlordly Upper House and there still remains some benefit from the small-scale attempt at the municipal level. There is also a far stronger memory of 'Geoigism' as preached by Sir George Grey and his confreres in the 1890s than could be found today in England of the preaching by Lord Randolph Churchill, his son Sir Winston and David Lloyd George.

Today's Georgists should applaud Mr. Barber and ask just why the valiant effort in Denmark -- that in the 1950s looked so hopeful -- have left such little mark and why the forces of reaction were able to halt the municipal effort.

The answer probably lies in what assuredly followed the publication of Progress and Poverty and then the sweep of Henry George into world prominence. It would have brought consternation and alarm to the monopolists, some of whom would have advocated agent provocateur action with armed force to follow. More cunning heads would have said "No. My friend Tom Shearman is my legal man in New York and he will certainly have no wish for bloodshed. Let me have a word with him, for I am sure we can gain the time to plan quietly and effectively. We ourselves cannot now risk armed force."

That scenario would account for Shearman's well-meant but innocent proposals that the movement call itself the Single Tax and that work should start at the municipal level. It would account for George, at that first big conference, "disconsolately taking the noes" as they crossed the floor to vote against the motions. (In Henry George Reconsidered, Rhoda Hellman documents it.

The movement has wasted a century on what Fred Harrison now calls "the municipal trivialization". Why George was "disconsolate" was probably through sensing a flaw in the argument while being unable instantly to see it. He was more a prophet than astute political planner and campaigner and the effects of oncoming illness may already have been slowing him! For want of deep analysis my generation, along with my father's and grandfather's generations, all failed to "Do the work of the Prophet!" Let us make a start now.

This time, let us take Fred Harrison's cue and aggrandize our programme. Let us answer Mr Barber's plea and everywhere form political groups aimed openly at the instant taking of every last cent or penny of site rent into the public coffers, there to replace taxation, not to merely reform it!

This requires an unequivocal demand by our propagandists for 'the lot and instantly!' We won't get it instantly, but as our support swells, there will be sops proffered by our opponents while they cling to the remnants of their power.

Each such sop must be astutely accepted, but our propagandists, in parliament and out, must lambaste the monopolists at every turn: "You give us this crumb from your stolen wealth, hoping it will delay us or somehow pervert us, while you lie to the workers that your action in somewhat dropping their taxes and fractionally raising their wages is a result of your good government. You always have been fabricators and deceivers. You still are. And you always will be until we, we, have recorded every last cent and penny of the loot that for centuries you and your predecessors have been stealing from the workers. That, plus our secondary aim of destroying the power that for so long has turned you from being good and effective individuals into the arrogant and lying bunch of knaves that you are."

Never again must we let the universities and the churches be used to twist the language and subvert the argument. We must make our language as red hot as was/is (he robbery that goes on through today's parliaments! We must make a continuing analysis of every word and phrase, constantly restating them in everyday commercial language. No longer should we allow any inadequacy in our analysis or argument. We must have cogent answers on every point.

With clarity and intensity of language we will then see and say that robbery through the rent of money -- and the withholding of it from use -- is just as heinous as robbery through the rent of land. Each must be made unprofitable, totally unprofitable, not trivially. Only then, with rent totally taken for government, will the landlordly schemers be totally unable to withhold land from use and unable to continue their depredations against society. Only then, by painting the logic of Henry George in terms of commercial commonsense, can we expect the community to give us their fullhearted approval and support.

Mr. Barber, I overwhelmingly support your plea.