FORERUNNERS OF HENRY GEORGE
"When you have seen a truth that those around
you do not see, it is one of the deepest of pleasures to hear
of others who have seen it." Thus Henry George wrote on learning
that his proposal for a Single Tax had been evolved by men before
his time, dead and almost forgotten.
It would be an endless
task to write adequately of all the thinkers who have denounced
monopoly in land, and who have devised various remedies. This paper
will be confined to those philosophers who have proposed for public
purposes a single source of public revenue.
There have been various
kinds of Single Tax. In Villari’s Savonarola (1: 275) we read:
"he first matter demanding attention was the revision of the taxes.
Savonarola continually urged this in his sermons…. Levy taxes on
real property alone, abolish continual loans, abolish arbitrary
imposts." The law of February 5, 1495, "obliged all citizens to pay
ten per cent on all income from real property." (I: 277).
In Palgrave’s Dictionary
of Political Economy (II: 372) Caletot tells of an impot unique
proposed in 1576-77 in France, in the states-general of Blois,
"assessed according to the means of the owner of each dwelling."
In 1573-75 and 1592-98 the cortes of Madrid proposed a Single Tax
on grist, levied when it left the mill. In 1646 Arriaga in his Universal
Plan for Suppression of Taxes proposed a general income tax of two
per cent. In 1651 Father Davila proposed a single, general progressive
poll tax. (Palgrave 1: 485).
Shortly before his death at Amsterdam, Benedict
de Spinoza (1632-1677) composed Tractatus Politicus, an unfinished
work. Therein he holds (Chap. VI: 12):
"The fields and the whole soil and, if it can be
managed, the houses should be public property, that is, the property of him
who holds the right of the commonwealth: and let him let them at a yearly
rent to the citizens, whether townsmen or countrymen, and with this exception
let them all be free or exempt from every kind of taxation in time of peace."
De Lajonchere, a French engineer, in the
beginning of the 18th century advocated "one sole tax, without
privilege or exemption, on the general produce of the ground,
mines, quarries, etc." (Palgrave I : 537) In 1734 Jacob Vanderlint,
a timber merchant of London, published his Money Answers all Things.
(Eccles. X: 19). He advocated (p. 109) a Single Tax on lands and houses.
In 1739 appeared an anonymous book, On the Causes of the Decline of
the Foreign Trade, ascribed to Matthew Decker, a wealthy director of
the East India Company, sitting in Parliament for Bishop’s Castle. He
proposed (p. 43) "to take off our unequal taxes and oppressive excises,
and to lay one tax on the consumers of luxuries…". His proposed list of
luxuries begins with: "Keeping 2 coaches and six, £50." Again in
1743 Decker published Serious Considerations on the Several High Duties,
with a proposal for raising all the public supplies by one Single Tax.
Probably this was the first use of the English term "Single Tax." It
was used in 1806 in an English translation of Filangieri’s Science of
Legislation, (Ostell, London, II: 206), and it appears again in Gourlay’s
Statistical Account of Upper Canada, (London, 1822, intro., p. 9).
Decker’s second proposal
was for a Single Tax on inhabited houses with attached estates,
exempting the poorer classes (assessments governed by the rents),
the quantum recorded on a plate of brass attached to each house, "and
there could be no dispute."
In 1775 Thomas Spence
(1750-1814) of Newcastle, England, published: "The Rights of
Man, as exhibited in a lecture read at the Pl1ilosophical Society
in Newcastle on the 8th of November, 1775, for printing of which
the Society did the author the honor to expel him." Spence held
that the land, with all that appertains to it, is, in every parish,
the property of the Corporation, with ample power to let, repair or
alter any part thereof; that it should be confiscated and re-let in
small parcels from time to time. "There are no taxes of any kind paid
among them, by native or foreigner, but the aforesaid rent, which every
person pays to the parish according to the quantity, quality and conveniences
of the land, housing, etc., which he occupies in it…."
In 1781 the American Colonies,
in rebellion against Great Britain, adopted "Articles of Confederation."
These fell to pieces, Congress, unfortunately, not having been
clothed with power of enforcement. Article VIII provided for federal
revenue by one tax on land and improvements:
"ART. VIII.—All charges of war, and all other expenses
that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare,
and allowed by the United States in Congress assembled, shall
be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by
the several States, in proportion to the value of all land within
each State, granted to, or surveyed for any person, as such land and
the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated according
to such mode as the United States in Congress assembled shall from
time to time direct and appoint. The taxes for paying that proportion
shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the several
States within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled."
In 1832 James Silk Buckingham, M. P. for
Sheffield, issued his Outlines of a New Budget. He proposed
a Single Tax on rank, beginning with five grades of noblemen, taxed
30% on arbitrarily assumed incomes; followed by six grades of gentry
taxed 20%, and five grades of tradesmen taxed 10%—other classes
In 1828 Thomas Rowe Edmonds
(1803-1889), fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, published
his Practical Moral and Political Economy, (London, 1828). He
held, p. 157:
"An income tax is to be regarded as the most
useful of all taxes, and all national governments would do well to begin
a new system of taxation by substituting an income tax, or a tax equivalent
to an income tax, for all other taxes."
Edmonds comes within our
definition of "Single Taxer," although for sumptuary purposes he
"They might afterwards proceed on the principle of
taxing all articles of luxury, in proportion to their indirect
degree of utility."
Some day the world will learn that the
taxing power should be used for taxation only; not for "protective," restrictive,
sumptuary or police purposes. All these are misuses. Thomas
Spence proposed the right principle for his Commonwealth:
"Freedom to do anything cannot be bought; a thing
is entirely prohibited, as theft or murder, or entirely free
to everyone without tax or price."
According to Konrad Haebler (Palgrave,
II, 372) the Roman Emperor Charles V. (1500-1558) as King of Spain proposed
a single direct tax, the earliest of several proposals of that kind. The
writer cannot find supporting evidence. In 1539, however, Charles proposed
an indirect tax on commodities, affecting all classes alike. The nobles and
clergy refused assent, whereupon Charles dismissed them as unworthy to lay
taxes, being unwilling to pay them.
In the 18th century among
Occidental philosophers Chinese methods of government had a
high reputation, perhaps due more to maxims of ancient Chinese
philosophers than to their adoption by rulers at that time. In Miles
Menander Dawson’s Ethics of Confucius, he writes of Confucius (born
about 551 B. C.) that his last words were regrets that none among the
rulers then living possessed the sagacity requisite to a proper appreciation
of his ethical philosophy and teachings. His follower, Mencius (Mangtsze),
born 372 B. C., for many years visited ruler after ruler without success,
patiently accepting his failures as the will of Heaven. Mencius’ proposals
concerning agricultural land were agrarian, but the following recommendations
(p. 205) concerning trade contain the Single Tax idea:
"If in the market-place he levy a ground rent on
the shops, but do not tax the goods, or enforce proper regulations without
levying a ground rent, then all the merchants of the empire will be pleased
and will wish to have their goods in his marketplace. If at his frontier
there be an inspection of persons, but no import duties, all travelers throughout
the empire will be pleased, and wish to make their tours on his
roads." (Mencius, Book 2, Pt. 1, ch. 5).
In the Economic Principles of Confucius,
by Dr. Chen Huan-Chang, the Master is quoted (p. 633):
"Formerly the wise Kings inspected the travelers
at the custom houses, but did not levy duty upon commodities. They established
public warehouses in the market places, but did not tax commodities.
They taxed one-tenth of the produce of the land. They employed
the labor of the people not more than three days in one year. The
entering into the mountains and the meres by the people was limited
to the proper times by regulations, but not by tax …"
In The Economic Principles of Confucius,
Dr. Chen Huan-Chang writes of a progressive minister about 780
A. D., (P. 652):
Of the sixteenth century Dr. Chen writes (p. 656):
"Yang Yen was a great reformer. He abolished all
other direct taxes, and reduced them to the land tax only. The poll tax was
included in the land tax. This was the first time that the system of ‘single
whip’ was originated. He made no difference between the stranger and the
native, nor between the young and the adult. The only basis of direct taxation
was the land, not the person. It was simple and uniform. The officials could
not practice corruption, nor could the people evade their dues. ."
"In 1581 A. D. the system of ‘single whip’ was universally
established. The total amount of land tax and poll tax of each
district was fixed, and the poll tax was equally distributed to
the land… All the different kinds of contributions, tribute etc., were
simplified into a single item, and they were supplied by the officials
with the money of the land tax. Land was the only object of direct taxation,
and was taxed according to acreage."
We are indebted to Dr. Marion Mills Miller,
editor of The Greek and Latin Classics, for presenting to English
readers in 1909, Dio Chrysostom’s story of The Hunter of Euboea,
translated by Prof. Winans. (Vol. 7, p. 302). Dio lived about 50-117
A.D. Although a stoic and democrat, both the emperors Vespasian
and Domitian sought his advice. Dio’s fable concerns some castaways
on the uninhabited shores of Euboea. By hard labor they had gained
a modest living, when complaint was filed at Athens that they had
not paid a price for the land nor a tithe of the income. Their representative
at the hearing was a young hunter. A volunteer whom Dio describes
as ‘a kind, sensible man," defended the "squatters."
"He proceeded in a quiet tone to say that
men do no harm in clearing and tilling the unutilized lands;
that, on the contrary, they should have commendation; that the
people ought not to feel anger towards those who build houses and
plant orchards on the public lands, but rather toward those who let
them go to waste Our lands should be brought under cultivation, and
our people, all who will, be freed from two of the greatest of human
miseries—idleness and poverty.
"For ten years
let them have their farms rent free; after that time by a definite
arrangement, let them pay over a small tithe of their crops,
but nothing from their cattle.
"In my judgment,….
we should let these men stay in possession of what their own
hands have created, on their undertaking to pay a small rent hereafter….
And, if they desire to purchase this land, I move that we sell it
to them cheaper than to any other."
In Cossa’s Introduction to Political Economy
(p. 156) we read of Ludovico Ghetti, probably a contemporary
of Savonarola, who "had a scheme for levying one tax, and one
only." Further scanty information appears in Palgrave (II: 207):
he "advocated the impot unique, and was one of the humanist philosophers
who flourished in Florence during the fifteenth century."
Palgrave (I: 169 and II: 463) gives equally
unsatisfactory notice of Giovanni Botero, born at Bene, Piedmont,
in 1540; died at Turin in 1617.
He "held that land taxes should be the only source
From the same source (Palgrave, 1: 90 and
II: 372) we learn of Bandini, eulogized by Richard Cobden. Bandini
was born at Siena, Italy, in 1677. He died in 1775. He was trained
as a soldier, but preferred agriculture. He took holy orders, and
became Archdeacon. He was president of the Physiocratical Society,
intended to promote natural sciences, rather than literature.
Among the objects
sought by Bandini were (1) few and simple laws (2) rapidity
and facility of exchange, which, and not abundance of money, are
the causes of wealth (3) a Single Tax, as easier and cheaper for
all parties; it ought to be imposed on land, and farmed out.
We are indebted to Palgrave (II: 372),
for information concerning a pamphlet by Francisco Centani.
"Centani, however, is,
more than any one else, entitled to be considered as a direct ancestor
of the French Physiocrats. In a memorial entitled Tierras, and
submitted to the King of Spain (1671) Centani, taking up an opinion
expressed a few years before by Juan de Castro, explicitly asserts
that land is the only real wealth (la tierra es le verdadera y fisica
hacienda) and insists on the removal of all indirect taxation in favor
of a direct and territorial taxation founded on an exact and extensive
About half a century later,
the minister Ensenada gave orders to proceed with this survey
in Castile on a plan which had been successfully carried out in
Catabonia, and in 1770 Charles III decreed the unica contribucion,
which was, however, never actually put in force."