The Socialism of to-day

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

COLLECTIVISM AND LAND NATIONALIZATION. 259 improvements and from all progress finds its way at last into the pockets of the landowners. The labourer gains no advan tage therefrom, and as living becomes more difficult as the price of food rises, there results privation for the working classes and destitution for those least well off. When in California, to recall Mr. George’s illustration, there was land for any one who wished to take it, rent did not exist, and the labourer enjoyed the entire product of his labour. To-day, in order to obtain access to the natural agents and raw materials upon which to work, he must abandon to rent everything beyond the bare necessaries. To prevent poverty from increasing side by side with wealth, Mr. George sees only one remedy, namely, to make over the ownership of the land to the State. To accomplish this reform, he says, it is not necessary to have recourse to expropriation ; It will be enough to raise the land-tax so as to absorb rent, as IS done in certain provinces in India where the State is, in con sequence, looked upon as the proprietor of the land. All other taxes might then be abolished, and trade, freed from all shackles, would receive such an impetus that general well-being would result. This idea of a rent-tax is at bottom the same as that of the Physiocrats, a single tax on land. Towards the close of his life, J. S. Mill proposed that the State should take the whole increase of rent which was due to the collective progress of society and not to the individual efforts of the proprietor. A French landowner, M. Edgard Baron, in his “ Protest against the Abusive Extension of the Right of Property,” has uttered ideas similar to those of Mr. George. I believe that it is a mistake to see in rent the principal cause of inequality. In so far as it levies the exceptional produce of the more fertile land, it establishes, on the contrary, equality among the cultivators of lands which differ in productivity. Were it not for rent, the cultivator of fertile soil would obtain for the same effort a much greater remuneration than the man who worked refractory land. It is capital, ever growing, which engrosses a larger and larger share of the total product Formerly the principal factor was labour. Now, in proportion

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: The Socialism of to-day

Monograph

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation