THE A B C OF TAXATION 
•4 
but it is of far greater importance to understand 
clearly what is the source of ground rent, and especially 
to what extent it may be regarded as a social product. 
Inasmuch as all the contributions representing these 
activities, so far as enumerated, are from the 
treasuries of the people, it is correct and proper 
to say that ground rent is chiefly and peculiarly a 
social product. 
From one point of view (that of demand) it may 
be said that the value of all commodities is a social 
product. But when we come to consider the other 
side of the value problem, we find that most other 
commodities, e. g., houses, increase or decrease at man’s 
will, according to the principle of cost, the value being 
a resultant of a balancing of social desire against 
social cost. 
With land it is more generally true that the 
quantity either cannot be increased at all or can 
be increased only at increasing cost; and hence the 
practical determinant of the value of land is almost 
entirely in the social and private activities that make 
the use of land desirable. 
VI.—The Maintenance of Ground Rent 
So far as the cost of streets, lights, water, 
sewerage, fire, police, schools, libraries, museums, 
parks, play-grounds, steam and electric railways, 
gas and electric lights, telegraph and telephone 
companies, subways, ferries, churches, private 
schools, colleges, universities, public buildings, well 
appointed houses, stores, and office buildings is 
what constitutes the cost value of the land, just 
so far the maintenance of all this public or