GROUND  RENT  A  SOCIAL  PRODUCT  27

The  fifty-five  millions  are,  we  submit,  the  “income"
in  very  truth  earned  by  the  city  and  people  of  Boston
—  created  by  their  actual  labour  and  actual  expenditure. ­
  Under  the  single  tax  Boston  would  pay  all  its
current  expenses  out  of  this  legitimate  $55,000,000
income  of  its  own,  earned  by  itself,  instead  of  allowing ­
  four-fifths,  or  $45,000,000,  of  this  amount  to  be
divided,  through  the  channel  of  special  privilege,  into
unearned  incomes,  thus  aggravating  those  inequalities
in  distribution  of  wealth  which  people  are  wont  to
declaim  against  as  partial  and  wrong.
While  that  part  of  the  ground  rent  of  Boston  that
goes  to  individuals  may  be  said  to  be  unearned  by
them,  rent  as  a  whole  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  unearned; ­
  having  been  produced  by  society,  it  may
truthfully  be  said  to  be  earned  by  society,  and  hence
R  may  go  to  it  as  its  wages,  just  as  properly  as  his
earnings  go  to  the  individual  who  works  for  wages,
if  a  railroad  has  the  special  privilege  of  a  monopoly
m  the  transportation  of  coal  from  the  Pennsylvania
eoal  mines,  or  in  the  transportation  of  people,  why
n °t  tax  the  railroad  in  proportion  to  the  value  of  its
franchise?  The  private  monopoly  of  a  natural
resource  is  a  special  privilege.  If  the  private  ownership ­
  of  the  two  or  three  billion  tons  of  unmined  anthrac
 ite  coal  is  a  special  privilege,  why  not  tax  it  what
others  would  give  for  the  privilege  of  mining  and
marketing  it,  thus  making  all  the  people  sharers  in
What  is  called  a  natural  bounty?  If  the  private  appropriation ­
  of  a  billion  dollars’  worth  of  iron  ore  is  a
special  privilege,  would  it  not  be  “proportionate  and
reasonable”  for  its  owners  to  pay  in  taxation  onehulf
  at  least  of  the  value  of  that  privilege?  It  is
becoming  common  to  scold  about  trusts  and  monopo ­