28
THE A B C OF TAXATION
lies, coal barons, oil magnates, and railroad kings,
but many people do not think of the perfectly natural
resort of taxing them to the same extent that other
people are being taxed.
This bugbear of monopoly is the central point
at which numberless palliatives are ineffectively aimed.
Taxation, it will be found, is the only “power to
destroy” what there is of wrong, and the only “power
to build up” what is right in these conditions.
XIII.—The Opinions of Economists
Concerning the first leg of the single tax tripos,
the following statements gleaned from some of the
world’s greatest thinkers in the field of economics
and public finance, who, however, have approached
the subject from another point of view, support the
contention of this chapter that the value of land is a
social product:
“ Both ground rents and the ordinary rent of land are a
species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys
without any care or attention of his own. Though a part of
this revenue should be taken from him in order to defray the
expenses of the State, no discouragement will thereby be given
to any sort of industry. The annual produce of the land and
labour of the society, the real wealth and revenue of the great
body of the people, might be the same after such a tax as before.
Ground rents, and the ordinary rent of land, are, therefore,
perhaps the species of revenue which can best bear to have a
peculiar tax imposed upon them.
“ Ground rents seem, in this respect, a more proper subject
of peculiar taxation than even the ordinary rent of land. The
ordinary rent of land is, in many cases, owing partly at least to
the attention and good management of the landlord. A very
heavy tax might discourage too much this attention and good
management. Ground rents, so far as they exceed the ordinary
