GROUND RENT A SOCIAL PRODUCT n 
treasury tends to a fairer distribution of produce in 
Wages earned. Whatever of taxation is transferred 
from other wealth to ground rent leaves so much more 
Wealth to be distributed in wages. 
Again, it is submitted that the true office of ground 
rent is to offer a communal shoulder suited to bear 
all the burden of common needs, leaving produce — 
current wealth — to be distributed, as fast as pro 
duced, in wages and interest, the total volume of 
which will always be increased by the amount of rent 
appropriated through the taxation of whatever of 
economic rent there is in special privilege. 
Ground rent being a social product, is not its private 
appropriation a special privilege? 
V.—The Cause of Ground Rent 
The dimensions, as well as the continuous character 
of the contribution made by the people to the growth 
and volume of ground rent, are seldom measured — 
by many persons hardly suspected. Almost anything 
Use that he owns, except land, a man may appropriate, 
destroy, tear down, burn down, remove, consume, 
change in form, wear out. To the land itself he cannot 
do any of these things. The value of its use is ground 
rent, an annual value, which is all that the owner of 
land can consume each year. The land value itself 
survives, and usually intact. People speak of owning 
land, because they or their fathers have bought and 
paid for it. 
A simple illustration will indicate how a dispro 
portionate reliance may be placed upon this argument, 
considered in the light of all the causes contrib 
uting to the value of land. Suppose, for instance,