A
ETHICS  OF  THE  SINGLE  TAX,  ITS  BREADTH  AND  CATHOLICITY*
The  appeal  to  reason  contained  in  the  doctrine  of  Henry
George,  whether  as  a  moral  philosophy,  or  as  a  system  of  taxation, ­
  is  as  universal  as  is  the  natural  tax  (ground  rent),  which
has  been  in  automatic  and  irresistible  operation  for  centuries,
in  every  civilised  country  under  the  sun.  A  response  to  this
universal  appeal  only  awaits  the  precipitation  of  a  mass  of
relative  ignorance  and  error  now  held  in  solution  in  the  public
mind  regarding  the  author  and  his  doctrine.
This  single  tax  of  Henry  George  is  broad  and  catholic  like
the  air,  the  sunshine,  and  all  other  bounties  that  heaven
sends  alike  upon  the  just  and  the  unjust.  It  knows  no  distinction ­
  of  race,  denomination,  party,  sect,  or  creed.  It
knows  no  socialism,  individualism,  communism,  anarchism,
Greek,  barbarian,  bond,  or  free.  The  land  question  is  under
all  these.  Where  it  leaves  off,  these  begin.  A  single  taxer  may
be  any  of  these.  All  of  these  should  be  single  taxers.
There  is  in  the  single  tax,  or  natural  taxation,  nothing  of
technical  socialism,  which  means  the  assumption  by  society
of  functions  that  are  primarily  individual.  It  is  rather  a
re-socialisation  of  that  which  by  its  own  nature,  in  Its  inception ­
  and  in  its  growth,  can  be  nothing  but  socialised,  but  which
has  been  artificially  de-socialised.  There  is  in  natural  taxation ­
  no  communism,  if  by  communism  is  meant  the  compulsory ­
  pooling  of  the  products  of  human  labour.  Such
taxation  is,  however,  the  divine  communism  of  the  common
enjoyment  of  a  natural  bounty  bestowed  upon  all  in  common.
There  is  in  natural  taxation  no  taint  of  the  anarchism  of  disorder. ­
  It  is  the  recognition  of  the  ideal  anarchism  of  law,  so
perfect,  self-adjusting,  self-operating,  that  no  external  force
is  needed  to  carry  it  into  execution.
♦Published  in  the  Arena  of  January,  1899.
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