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Justice — Changing Conceptions of
Justice
Our concept of justice is not fixed. We
ended chattel slavery after several centuries.
We recognized women as full citizens long after we
held it to be a self-evident truth that all men were
created equal. We lowered the age at which one is
entitled to vote from 21 to 18. We debate capital
punishment, both for all persons and for those below
some age or below some threshold of understanding of
right and wrong.
As our common conception of what constitutes
justice changes, we need to be prepared to help each
other adjust. And just as slaveholders were not
reimbursed for the value that their former slaves
represented to them, we need to think about how we
adapt.
At some point — if Clarence Darrow was
right, it will be when we figure out that we've
already tried everything else, and it hasn't worked
— America will recognize the truth and
significance of what Henry George figured out, and
there will be a widely shared moral imperative to
share the land rent among us all, rather than let
some privatize huge rent-flows as if they were
somehow God's eldest
sons — and at the same time to privatize
that which rightly belongs to the individual.
It may also be that our conception of justice will
change as we come to understand the distribution of
wealth and income in this country.
The opening paragraphs from the prologue to David
Brion Davis's Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall
of Slavery in the New World are these:
In 1770, on the eve of the American
Revolution, African American slavery was legal and
almost unquestioned throughout the New World. The
ghastly slave trade from Africa was still expanding
and for many decades had been shipping five
Africans across the Atlantic for every European
immigrant to the Americas. An imaginary
"hemispheric traveler" would have seen black slaves
in every colony from Canada and New England all the
way south to Spanish Peru and Chile. In the
incomparably rich colonies in the Caribbean, they
often constituted population majorities of 90
percent or more. But in 1888, one hundred and
eighteen years later, when Brazil finally freed all
its slaves, the institution had been outlawed
throughout the Western Hemisphere.
This final act of liberation,
building on Abraham Lincoln's emancipation
achievement in the American Civil War, took place
only a century after the creation of the first
antislavery societies in human history —
initially small groups in such places as
Philadelphia, London, Manchester, and New York.
The abolition of New World slavery
depended in large measure on a major transformation
in moral perception — on the emergence of
writers, speakers, and reformers, beginning in the
mid-eighteenth century, who were willing to condemn
an institution that had been sanctioned for
thousands of years and who also strove to make
human society something more than an endless
contest of greed and power. [emphasis
mine]
Henry George:
The Wages of Labor
In speaking of measures for improving social
conditions, it seems to us that in the teachings of
morality is to be found the highest practicality, and
that the question, What is wise may always safely be
subordinated to the question, what is right?
But expressed moral truths are
deprived of all practical meaning when accompanied by
unjust sanctions as when the American people, while
they legalised chattel slavery, were accustomed to read
solemnly on every national anniversary the declaration
which asserts: “We hold these truths to be
self-evident that all men are created equal and are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness.”
What did this truth mean on the
lips of men who asserted that one man was the rightful
property of another man who had bought him, who
asserted that the slave was robbing the master in
running away, and that the man or the woman who helped
the fugitive to escape, or even gave him a cup of cold
water in Christ’s name, was an accessory to
theft, on whose head the penalties of the State should
be visited? ...
We ask for consideration of our proposals, and
we would seek to promote discussion along the line of
greatest importance – the line of
morality.
We have no solicitude for the
truth, knowing that it is of the nature of truth always
to prevail over error where discussion goes
on.
And the truth for which we stand
has now made such progress in the minds of men that it
must be heard; that it can never be stifled; that it
must, go on conquering and to conquer!
Faster than ever the world is
moving! ...
Forty years ago slavery seemed stronger in the
United States than ever before, and the market price
of slaves both working slaves and breeding slaves
– was higher than it had ever been before, for
the title of the owner seemed growing more secure. In
the shadow of the Hall where the equal rights of man
had been solemnly proclaimed, the manacled fugitive
was dragged back to bondage, and on what to American
tradition was our Marathon of freedom, the slave
master boasted that he would yet call the roll of his
chattels.
Yet forty years ago, though the
Party that was to place Abraham Lincoln in the
Presidential chair had not been formed, and nearly a
decade was yet to pass ere the signal gun was to ring
out, slavery, as we now see, was doomed!
... read
the whole article
Rev. A. C. Auchmuty: Gems from George, a themed
collection of excerpts from the writings of Henry
George (with links to sources)
NATURE acknowledges no ownership or control in man
save as the result of exertion. In no other way can
her treasures be drawn forth, her powers directed, or
her forces utilized or controlled. She makes no
discriminations among men, but is to all absolutely
impartial. She knows no distinction between master
and slave, king and subject, saint and sinner. All
men to her stand upon an equal footing and have equal
rights. She recognizes no claim but that of labor,
and recognizes that without respect to the claimant.
If a pirate spread his sails, the wind will fill them
as well as it will fill those of a peaceful
merchantman or missionary bark; if a king and a
common man be thrown overboard, neither can keep his
head above the water except by swimming; birds will
not come to be shot by the proprietor of the soil any
quicker than they will come to be shot by the
poacher; fish will bite or will not bite at a hook in
utter disregard as to whether it is offered them by a
good little boy who goes to Sunday school, or a bad
little boy who plays truant; grain will grow only as
the ground is prepared and the seed is sown; it is
only at the call of labor that ore can be raised from
the mine; the sun shines and the rain falls alike
upon just and unjust. The laws of nature are the
decrees of the Creator. There is written in them no
recognition of any right save that of labor; and in
them is written broadly and clearly the equal right
of all men to the use and enjoyment of nature; to
apply to her by their exertions, and to receive and
possess her reward. Hence, as nature gives only to
labor, the exertion of labor in production is the
only title to exclusive possession. —
Progress & Poverty
— Book VII, Chapter 1, Justice of the Remedy:
Injustice of private property in land
PRIVATE property is not of one species, and moral
sanction can no more be asserted universally of it
than of marriage. That proper marriage conforms to
the law of God does not justify the polygamic or
polyandric or incestuous marriages that are in some
countries permitted by the civil law. And as there
may be immoral marriage, so may there be immoral
private property. —
The Condition of Labor, an Open Letter to Pope Leo
XIII
THAT any species of property is permitted by the
State, does not of itself give it moral sanction. The
State has often made things property that are not
justly property but involve violence and robbery.
—
The Condition of Labor, an Open Letter to Pope Leo
XIII
TO attach to things created by God the same right of
private ownership that justly attaches to things
produced by labor, is to impair and deny the true
rights of property. For a man, who out of the
proceeds of his labor is obliged to pay another man
for the use of ocean or air or sunshine or soil, all
of which are to men involved in the single term land,
is in this deprived of his rightful property, and
thus robbed. —
The Condition of Labor, an Open Letter to Pope Leo
XIII
HOW then is it that we are called deniers of the
right of property? It is for the same reason that
caused nine-tenths of the good people in the United
States, north as well as south, to regard
abolitionists as deniers of the right of property;
the same reason that made even John Wesley look on a
smuggler as a kind of robber, and on a custom-house
seizer of other men's goods as a defender of law and
order. Where violations of the right of
property have been long sanctioned by custom
and law, it is inevitable that those who really
assert the right of property will at first be thought
to deny it. For under such circumstances the
idea of property becomes confused, and that is
thought to be property which is in reality a
violation of property. —
A Perplexed Philosopher
(The Right Of Property And The Right Of
Taxation)
LANDLORDS must elect to try their case either by
human law or by moral law. If they say that
land is rightly property because made so by human
law, they cannot charge those who would change that
law with advocating robbery. But if they charge
that such change in human law would be robbery, then
they must show that land is rightfully property
irrespective of human law. — The Reduction
to Iniquity (a reply to the Duke of Argyll), The
Nineteenth Century, July, 1884
THE common law we are told is the perfection of
reason, and certainly the landowners cannot complain
of its decision, for it has been built up by and for
landowners. Now what does the law allow to the
innocent possessor when the land for which he paid
his money is adjudged to rightfully belong
to another? Nothing at all. That he purchased in
good faith gives him no right or claim whatever. The
law does not concern itself with the "intricate
question of compensation" to the innocent purchaser.
The law does not say, as John Stuart Mill says: "The
land belongs to A, therefore B who has thought
himself the owner has no right to anything but the
rent, or compensation for its salable value." For
that would be indeed like a famous fugitive slave
case decision in which the Court was said to have
given the law to the North and the nigger to the
South. The law simply says: "The land belongs to A,
let the Sheriff put him in possession! " —
Progress & Poverty
— Book VII, Chapter 3, Justice of the Remedy:
Claim of Landowners to Compensation
COMPENSATED for what? For giving up what has been
unjustly taken? The demand of land-owners for
compensation is not that. We do not seek to spoil the
Egyptians. We do not ask that what has been unjustly
taken from laborers shall be restored. We are willing
that bygones should be bygones, and to leave dead
wrongs to bury their dead. We propose to let those
who, by the past appropriation of land-value, have
taken the fruits of labor, retain what they have thus
got. We merely propose that for the future such
robbery of labor shall cease. — NOW, is the
State called on to compensate men for the failure of
their expectations as to its action, even where no
moral element is involved? If it make peace, must it
compensate those who have invested on the expectation
of war. If it open a shorter highway, is it morally
bound to compensate those who may lose by the
diversion of travel from the old one? If it promote
the discovery of a cheap means of producing
electricity directly from heat, is it morally bound
to compensate the owners of all the steam engines
thereby thrown out of use and all who are engaged in
making them? If it develop the air-ship, must it
compensate those whose business would be injured?
Such a contention would be absurd. —
The Condition of Labor
Yet the contention we are considering is worse. It is
that the State must compensate for disappointing the
expectations of those who have counted on its
continuing to do wrong. — A Perplexed
Philosopher
(Compensation)
COMPENSATION implies equivalence. To compensate for
the discontinuance of a wrong is to give those who
profit by the wrong the pecuniary equivalent of its
continuance. Now the State has nothing that does not
belong to the individuals who compose it. What it
gives to some it must take from others. Abolition
with compensation is therefore not really abolition,
but continuance under a different form — on one
side of unjust deprivation, and on the other side of
unjust appropriation. —
A Perplexed Philosopher (Compensation)
INNOCENT purchasers of what involves wrong to
others! Is not the phrase absurd? If, in our legal
tribunals, "ignorance of the law excuseth no man,"
how much less can it do so in the tribunal of morals
— and it is this to which compensationists
appeal.
And innocence can only shield from the punishment due
to conscious wrong; it cannot give right. If you
innocently stand on my toes, you may fairly ask me
not to be angry; but you gain no right to continue to
stand on them. — A Perplexed
Philosopher
(Compensation)
WHEN a man exchanges property of one kind for
property of another kind he gives up the one with all
its incidents and takes in its stead the other with
its incidents. He cannot sell bricks and buy hay, and
then complain because the hay burned when the bricks
would not. The greater liability of the hay to burn
is one of the incidents he accepted in buying it. Nor
can he exchange property having moral sanction for
property having only legal sanction, and claim that
the moral sanction of the thing he sold attaches now
to the thing he bought. That has gone with the thing
to the other party in the exchange. Exchange
transfers, it cannot create. Each party gives up
what right he had and takes what right the other
party had. The last holder obtains no moral right
that the first holder did not have. —
A
Perplexed Philosopher
(Compensation)
ONLY a little while ago nations were bought and
sold, traded off by treaty and bequeathed by will.
Where now is the right divine of kings? Only a little
while ago, and human flesh and blood were legal
property. Where are now the vested rights of chattel
slavery? And shall this wrong, that involves
monarchy, and involves slavery — this injustice
from which both spring — long continue? Shall
the ploughers for ever plough the backs of a class
condemned to toil? Shall the millstones of greed for
ever grind the faces of the poor? Ladies and
gentlemen, it is not in the order of the
universe! As one who for years has watched and
waited, I tell you the glow of dawn is in the sky.
Whether it come with the carol of larks or the roll
of the war-drums, it is coming — it will come.
The standard that I have tried to raise tonight may
be tom by prejudice and blackened by calumny; it may
now move forward, and again be forced back. But once
loosed, it can never again be furled! To beat down
and cover up the truth that I have tried tonight to
make clear to you, selfishness will call on
ignorance. But it has in it the germinative force of
truth, and the times are ripe for it. If the flint
oppose it, the flint must split or crumble! Paul
planteth, and Apollos watereth, but God giveth the
increase. The ground is ploughed; the seed is set;
the good tree will grow.
So little now, only the eye of faith can see it. So
little now; so tender and so weak. But sometime, the
birds of heaven shall sing in its branches; sometime,
the weary shall find rest beneath its shade! —
Speech: Why Work is Scarce, Wages Low and Labour
Restless (1877, San Francisco) ... go to "Gems from
George"
Louis Post: Outlines of Louis F. Post's
Lectures, with Illustrative Notes and Charts (1894)
— Appendix: FAQ
Q60. If the value of land be destroyed by the
single tax, would not justice require that
land-owners be compensated?
A. No. Land is given for the use of all, and rent is
produced by the community as a whole. To legally vest
land-ownership in less than the whole, excluding
those to come as well as those that are here, is a
moral crime against all who are excluded. Therefore
no government can make a perpetual title to land
which is or can become morally binding. Neither can
one generation vest the communal earnings of future
generations in particular persons by any morally
valid title, as they certainly attempt to do when
they make grants of land. There is both divine
justice and economic wisdom in the command that "the
land shall not be sold in perpetuity." In the forum
of morals all titles to land are subject to absolute
divestment as soon as the people decide upon the
change.... read
the book
Nic Tideman: Being Just While
Conceptions of Justice are Changing
A conception of justice is a framework for
resolving questions of what liberties people ought to
have. The smooth functioning of society requires
substantial consensus about conceptions of justice,
because without such consensus, people will take
actions and make claims on resources that others
regard as intrusions upon what is properly theirs.
This can be expected to lead, at a minimum, to
disharmony and possibly to violent conflict. On the
other hand, when people agree on a conception of
justice and who is competent to interpret it,
conflicts will be less likely to arise, and those
that do arise can be settled more easily. Thus there
is strong impetus toward stability in any society's
conception of justice: Any doubts about a shared
conception of justice may be suppressed or hidden to
preserve the advantages of consensus.
Moral evolution, however, can require
conceptions of justice to change, as when the world
came to recognize that slavery could not be just, or
that women must be accorded the same civil rights as
men. When, as with the abolition of slavery, a new
conception of justice entails the elimination of the
sale value of what had previously been assets, there
will be calls for compensation, on the ground that,
as provided in the fifth and fourteenth amendments to
the U.S. Constitution, governments should not take
property without compensation. ...
The paper argues that there are a variety of
factors that attenuate claims for compensation and
make a justifiable system of compensation so complex
that it may be unworkable. But if there is to be a
system of compensation, the one justifiable source of
funds to finance it is assets that have been acquired
by appropriating or buying land and then selling it.
...
The issue of compensation will be examined by
considering some idealized cases, identifying the
principles they exhibit, and then asking how those
principles apply to the circumstances in which modern
societies are likely to find themselves. ...
Read the whole article
Nic Tideman:
The Constitutional Conflict Between Protecting
Expectations and Moral Evolution
The main point of this paper is simple. Unless the
process that generates a constitution is perfect, there
should be provision for the possibility of changing the
constitution. It is true that the stability provided by
constitutions is valuable. By limiting the
opportunities for transient majorities to redistribute,
constitutions protect property rights. The resulting
stability promotes efficiency by reducing rent-seeking.
But as valuable as stability is, it is not lexically
more valuable than the chance to incorporate new moral
understandings into a constitution. And when a society
perceives the need to incorporate a new moral
understanding into its constitution, a disappointment
of pre-existing expectations is likely to be necessary.
...
read the whole article
The Most Rev. Dr Thomas Nulty, Roman Catholic Bishop
of Meath (Ireland): Back to the Land
(1881)
Human Slavery Once Generally
Accepted.
Slavery is found to have existed, as a social
institution, in almost all nations, civilised as well
as barbarous, and in every age of the world, up almost
to our own times. We hardly ever find it in the state
of a merely passing phenomenon, or as a purely
temporary result of conquest or of war, but always as a
settled, established and recognised state of social
existence, in which generation followed generation in
unbroken succession, and in which thousands upon
thousands of human beings lived and died. Hardly anyone
had the public spirit to question its character or to
denounce its excesses; it had no struggle to make for
its existence, and the degradation in which it held its
unhappy victims was universally regarded as nothing
worse than a mere sentimental grievance.
On the other hand, the justice of
the right of property which a master claimed in his
slaves was universally accepted in the light of a first
principle of morality. His slaves were either born on his
estate, and he had to submit to the labour and the cost
of rearing and maintaining them to manhood, or he
acquired them by inheritance or by free gift, or, failing
these, he acquired them by the right of purchase --
having paid in exchange for them what, according to the
usages of society and the common estimation of his
countrymen, was regarded as their full pecuniary value.
Property, therefore, in slaves was regarded as sacred,
and as inviolable as any other species of
property.
Even Christians Recognised
Slavery.
So deeply rooted and so universally received was
this conviction that the Christian religion itself,
though it recognised no distinction between Jew and
Gentile, between slave or freeman, cautiously abstained
from denouncing slavery itself as an injustice or a
wrong. It prudently tolerated this crying evil, because
in the state of public feeling then existing, and at
the low standard of enlightenment and intelligence then
prevailing, it was simply impossible to remedy
it.
Thus then had slavery come down
almost to our own time as an established social
institution, carrying with it the practical sanction and
approval of ages and nations, and surrounded with a
prestige of standing and general acceptance well
calculated to recommend it to men's feelings and
sympathies. And yet it was the embodiment of the most
odious and cruel injustice that ever afflicted humanity.
To claim a right of property in man was to lower a
rational creature to the level of the beast of the field;
it was a revolting and an unnatural degradation of the
nobility of human nature itself.
That thousands upon thousands of
human beings who had committed no crime, who had violated
no law, and who had done no wrong to anyone, should be
wantonly robbed of their liberty and freedom; should be
deprived of the sacred and inalienable moral rights,
which they could not voluntarily abdicate themselves;
should be bought and sold, like cattle in the markets;
and should be worked to death, or allowed to live on at
the whim or caprice of their owner, was the last and most
galling injustice which human nature could be called on
to endure.
The World's Approval Cannot Justify
Injustice.
To arrest public attention, and fix its gaze
effectively on the intrinsic character and constitution
of slavery, was to seal its doom; and its death knell
was sounded in the indignant cry of the great statesman
who "denied that man could hold property in man."
Twenty millions of British money were paid over to the
slave owners as compensation for the loss of property
to which they had no just title, and slavery was
abolished forever. Read the
whole letter
Jeff Smith and Kris Nelson: Giving Life to the Property Tax
Shift (PTS)
John Muir is right. "Tug on any one thing and
find it connected to everything else in the universe."
Tug on the property tax and find it connected to urban
slums, farmland loss, political favoritism, and
unearned equity with disrupted neighborhood tenure.
Echoing Thoreau, the more familiar reforms have failed
to address this many-headed hydra at its root. To think
that the root could be chopped by a mere shift in the
property tax base -- from buildings to land -- must
seem like the epitome of unfounded faith. Yet the
evidence shows that state and local tax activists do
have a powerful, if subtle, tool at their disposal. The
"stick" spurring efficient use of land is a higher tax
rate upon land, up to even the site's full annual
value. The "carrot" rewarding efficient use of land is
a lower or zero tax rate upon improvements.
...
In the final analysis, can those who would
redefine progress and other social reformers avoid the
issue of what to do with the immensity of Earth's
worth? No. The present policy of low land taxes and the
movement to abolish all taxes on landed property assume
that Earth is ours for the exploiting. It is a mindset
that must be contradicted and laid to rest -- as was
the justification for slavery -- if environmental and
planetary values are ever to ascend to the same level
as property rights. The profit from speculation or
over-extraction withers away when land dues are put in
place. ...
A big problem needs a big solution which
in turn needs a matching shift of our prevailing
paradigm. Geonomics -- advocating that we share the
social value of sites and natural resources and untax
earnings -- does just that.
Read the whole
article
Dave Wetzel: Justice or Injustice: The
Locational Benefit Levy
We
all have our own personal interpretation of how
“justice” can be achieved.
Often “justice” is interpreted in a
very narrow legal sense and only in reference to the
judicial system, which has been designed to protect the
status quo. ...
Of course, all citizens (and subjects in the UK)
-- need to know exactly what are the legal boundaries
within which society operates.
But, supposing those original rules are unfair
and unjust. Then the legal framework, being used to
perpetuate an injustice -- does not make that injustice
moral and proper even if within the rules of
jurisprudence it is “legal.”
Obvious examples of this dislocation between
immoral laws and natural justice is
- South Africa's former policy of
apartheid;
- the USA's former segregated schools and
buses;
- discrimination based on race, religion,
disability or sex;
- slavery;
- the oppression of women;
- Victorian Britain's use of child labour and
colonialism.
All these policies were
“lawful” according to the legal framework
of their day but that veneer of legality did not make
these policies righteous and just.
Any society built on a basis of injustice will
be burdened down with its own predisposition towards
self-destruction. Even the most suppressed people will
one-day, demand justice, rise up and overthrow their
oppressors.
Human survival demands justice. Wherever slavery
or dictatorship has been installed -- eventually,
justice has triumphed and a more democratic and fairer
system has replaced it. It is safe to predict that
wherever slavery or dictatorship exists today -- it
will be superseded by a fairer and more just
system.
Similarly, let's consider our
distribution of natural resources.
By definition, natural resources are not made by
human effort. Our planet offers every inhabitant a
bounty -- an amazing treasure chest of wealth that can
supply our needs for food, shelter and every aspect for
our survival.
Surely, “justice”
demands that this natural wealth should be equally
available to all and that nobody should starve, be
homeless or suffer poverty simply because they are
excluded from tapping in to this enormous wealth that
nature has provided. ...
If our whole economy, with
the private possession of land and other natural
resources, is built upon an injustice -- then can any
of us really be surprised that we continue to live on a
planet where wars predominate, intolerance is common,
crime is rife and where poverty and starvation is the
norm for a huge percentage of earth's
population.
Is this inherited system really the best we can
do?
There must be a method for fairly utilising the
earth's natural resources.
Referring to the rebuilding of
Iraq in his recent speech to the American Congress,
Tony Blair stated “We promised Iraq democratic
Government. We will deliver it. We promised them the
chance to use their oil wealth to build prosperity for
all their citizens, not a corrupt elite. We will do
so”.
Thus, Tony Blair recognises the difference
between political justice in the form of a democratic
Government and economic justice in the form of sharing
natural resources.
We have not heard any dissenting voice from this
promise to share Iraq's natural oil wealth for all the
people of Iraq to enjoy the benefits. But if it is so obviously right and proper for the
Iraqi people to share their natural wealth – why
is it not the practice to do the same in all
nations?
No landowner can create land values. If this
were the case, then an entrepreurial landowner in the
Scottish Highlands would be able to create more value
than an indolent landowner in the City of
London.
No, land values arise because of natural
advantages (eg fertility for agricultural land or
approximity to ports or harbours for commercial sites)
or because of the efforts of the whole community --
past and present investment by both the public and
private sectors, and the activities of individuals all
give rise to land values. Why do we
not advocate the sharing of these land values, which
are as much a gift of nature and probably in most
western economies are worth much more than Iraqi
oil?
One solution would be to introduce a
Location Benefit Levy, where
each site is valued, based on its optimum permitted use
and a levy is applied – a similar method to
Britain's commercial rates on buildings but based soley
on the land value and ignoring the condition of the
building.
The outcome of this policy would be to give all
citizens a share in the natural wealth of the nation.
...
It is an injustice that landowners can speculate
on empty sites, denying their use for jobs or
homes.
It is an injustice that a factory owner can sack
all their workers, smash the roof of their building to
let in the rain and be rewarded with elimination of
their rates bill.
It is an injustice that the poorest residents
pay the highest share of their incomes in Council
Tax.
It is an injustice that people are denied their
share of the earth's resources.
The Location Benefit Levy is a simple way to
start addressing the world's last great
injustice. Read the whole
article
Henry George:
The Land Question (1881)
The galleys that carried Caesar to Britain, the
accoutrements of his legionaries, the baggage that they
carried, the arms that they bore, the buildings that
they erected; the scythed chariots of the ancient
Britons, the horses that drew them, their wicker boats
and wattled houses–where are they now? But the
land for which Roman and Briton fought, there it is
still. That British soil is yet as fresh and as new as
it was in the days of the Romans. Generation after
generation has lived on it since, and generation after
generation will live on it yet. Now, here is a very
great difference. The right to possess and to pass on
the ownership of things that in their nature decay and
soon cease to be is a very different thing from the
right to possess and to pass on the ownership of that
which does not decay, but from which each successive
generation must live.
To show how this difference between land and such
other species of property as are properly styled wealth
bears upon the argument for the vested rights of
landholders, let me illustrate again.
Captain Kidd was a pirate. He made a business of
sailing the seas, capturing merchantmen, making their
crews walk the plank, and appropriating their cargoes.
In this way he accumulated much wealth, which he is
thought to have buried. But let us suppose, for the
sake of the illustration, that he did not bury his
wealth, but left it to his legal heirs, and they to
their heirs and so on, until at the present day this
wealth or a part of it has come to a
great-great-grandson of Captain Kidd. Now, let us
suppose that some one – say a
great-great-grandson of one of the shipmasters whom
Captain Kidd plundered, makes complaint, and says:
"This man's great-great-grandfather plundered my
great-great-grandfather of certain things or certain
sums, which have been transmitted to him, whereas but
for this wrongful act they would have been transmitted
to me; therefore, I demand that he be made to restore
them." What would society answer?
Society, speaking by its proper tribunals, and in
accordance with principles recognized among all
civilized nations, would say: "We cannot entertain such
a demand. It may be true that Mr. Kidd's
great-great-grandfather robbed your
great-great-grandfather, and that as the result of this
wrong he has got things that otherwise might have come
to you. But we cannot inquire into occurrences that
happened so long ago. Each generation has enough to do
to attend to its own affairs. If we go to righting the
wrongs and reopening the controversies of our
great-great-grandfathers, there will be endless
disputes and pretexts for dispute. What you say may be
true, but somewhere we must draw the line, and have an
end to strife. Though this man's
great-great-grandfather may have robbed your
great-great-grandfather, he has not robbed you. He came
into possession of these things peacefully, and has
held them peacefully, and we must take this peaceful
possession, when it has been continued for a certain
time, as absolute evidence of just title; for, were we
not to do that, there would be no end to dispute and no
secure possession of anything."
Now, it is this common-sense principle that is
expressed in the statute of limitations – in the
doctrine of vested rights. This is the
reason why it is held – and as to most things
held justly – that peaceable
possession for a certain time cures all defects of
title.
But let us pursue the illustration a little
further:
Let us suppose that Captain Kidd, having established
a large and profitable piratical business, left it to
his son, and he to his son, and so on, until the
great-great-grandson, who now pursues it, has come to
consider it the most natural thing in the world that
his ships should roam the sea, capturing peaceful
merchantmen, making their crews walk the plank, and
bringing home to him much plunder, whereby he is
enabled, though he does no work at all, to live in very
great luxury, and look down with contempt upon people
who have to work. But at last, let us suppose, the
merchants get tired of having their ships sunk and
their goods taken, and sailors get tired of trembling
for their lives every time a sail lifts above the
horizon, and they demand of society that piracy be
stopped.
Now, what should society say if Mr. Kidd got
indignant, appealed to the doctrine of vested rights,
and asserted that society was bound to prevent any
interference with the business that he had inherited,
and that, if it wanted him to stop, it must buy him
out, paying him all that his business was
worth–that is to say, at least as much as he
could make in twenty years' successful pirating, so
that if he stopped pirating he could still continue to
live in luxury off of the profits of the merchants and
the earnings of the sailors?
What ought society to say to such a claim as this?
There will be but one answer. We will all say that
society should tell Mr. Kidd that his was a business to
which the statute of limitations and the doctrine of
vested rights did not apply; that because his father,
and his grandfather, and his great- and
great-great-grandfather pursued the business of
capturing ships and making their crews walk the plank,
was no reason why lie should be permitted to pursue it.
Society, we will all agree, ought to say he would have
to stop piracy and stop it at once, and that without
getting a cent for stopping.
Or supposing it had happened that Mr. Kidd had sold
out his piratical business to Smith, Jones, or
Robinson, we will all agree that society ought to say
that their purchase of the business gave them no
greater right than Mr. Kidd had.
We will all agree that that is what society ought to
say. Observe, I do not ask what society would say.
For, ridiculous and preposterous as it may appear, I
am satisfied that, under the circumstances I have
supposed, society would not for a long time say what we
have agreed it ought to say. Not only would all the
Kidds loudly claim that to make them give up their
business without full recompense would be a wicked
interference with vested rights, but the justice of
this claim would at first be assumed as a matter of
course by all or nearly all the influential
classes–the great lawyers, the able journalists,
the writers for the magazines, the eloquent clergymen,
and the principal professors in the principal
universities. Nay, even the merchants and sailors, when
they first began to complain, would be so tyrannized
and browbeaten by this public opinion that they would
hardly think of more than of buying out the Kidds, and,
wherever here and there any one dared to raise his
voice in favor of stopping piracy at once and without
compensation, he would only do so under penalty of
being stigmatized as a reckless disturber and wicked
foe of social order.
If any one denies this, if any one says mankind are
not such fools, then I appeal to universal history to
bear me witness. I appeal to the facts of to-day.
Show me a wrong, no matter how monstrous, that ever
yet, among any people, became ingrafted in the social
system, and I will prove to you the truth of what I
say. ...
What is the slave-trade but piracy of the worst kind?
Yet it is not long since the slave-trade was looked
upon as a perfectly respectable business, affording as
legitimate an opening for the investment of capital and
the display of enterprise as any other. The proposition
to prohibit it was first looked upon as ridiculous,
then as fanatical, then as wicked. It was only slowly
and by hard fighting that the truth in regard to it
gained ground. Does not our very Constitution bear
witness to what I say? Does not the fundamental law of
the nation, adopted twelve years after the enunciation
of the Declaration of Independence, declare that for
twenty years the slave-trade shall not be prohibited
nor restricted? Such dominion had the idea of vested
interests over the minds of those who had already
proclaimed the inalienable right of man to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! ...
read the whole article
Henry George: The Condition of Labor
— An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII in response to
Rerum Novarum (1891)
Thus, that any species of property is permitted by
the state does not of itself give it moral sanction.
The state has often made things property that are not
justly property, but involve violence and robbery. For
instance, the things of religion, the dignity and
authority of offices of the church, the power of
administering her sacraments and controlling her
temporalities, have often by profligate princes been
given as salable property to courtiers and concubines.
At this very day in England an atheist or a heathen may
buy in open market, and hold as legal property, to be
sold, given or bequeathed as he pleases, the power of
appointing to the cure of souls, and the value of these
legal rights of presentation is said to be no less than
£17,000,000.
Or again: Slaves were universally treated as
property by the customs and laws of the classical
nations, and were so acknowledged in Europe long after
the acceptance of Christianity. At the beginning of
this century there was no Christian nation that did
not, in her colonies at least, recognize property in
slaves, and slaveships crossed the seas under Christian
flags. In the United States, little more than thirty
years ago, to buy a man gave the same legal ownership
as to buy a horse, and in Mohammedan countries law and
custom yet make the slave the property of his captor or
purchaser.
Yet your Holiness, one of the glories of whose
pontificate is the attempt to break up slavery in its
last strongholds, will not contend that the moral
sanction that attaches to property in things produced
by labor can, or ever could, apply to property in
slaves.
Your use, in so many passages of your Encyclical, of
the inclusive term “property” or
“private” property, of which in morals
nothing can be either affirmed or denied, makes your
meaning, if we take isolated sentences, in many places
ambiguous. But reading it as a whole, there can be no
doubt of your intention that private property in land
shall be understood when you speak merely of private
property. With this interpretation, I find that the
reasons you urge for private property in land are
eight. Let us consider them in order of presentation.
You urge:
1. That what is bought with rightful property is
rightful property. (RN, paragraph 5) ...
2. That private property in land proceeds from
man’s gift of reason. (RN, paragraphs 6-7.)
...
3. That private property in land deprives no one of the
use of land. (RN, paragraph 8.) ...
4. That Industry expended on land gives ownership in
the land itself. (RN, paragraphs 9-10.) ...
5. That private property in land has the support of the
common opinion of mankind, and has conduced to peace
and tranquillity, and that it is sanctioned by Divine
Law. (RN, paragraph 11.) ...
6. That fathers should provide for their children and
that private property in land is necessary to enable
them to do so. (RN, paragraphs 14-17.) ...
7. That the private ownership of land stimulates
industry, increases wealth, and attaches men to the
soil and to their country. (RN, paragraph 51.)
...
8. That the right to possess private property in land
is from nature, not from man; that the state has no
right to abolish it, and that to take the value of
landownership in taxation would be unjust and cruel to
the private owner. (RN, paragraph 51.) ... read the whole
letter
Fred E. Foldvary — The Ultimate Tax Reform:
Public Revenue from Land Rent
We still need to judge whether it is fair for only
landowners to pay the taxes, rather than to spread the
burden on all who get income or spend money or have
wealth.
Natural-law philosophers such as John Locke have
reasoned that all human beings have a natural ownership
right to their labor and the products of that labor.
The fundamental equality of humanity means it is
fundamentally wrong for some to take away the labor
done by others.31 That notion is almost universally
recognized today with respect to slavery, and some
folks are beginning to recognize that the current tax
system—which taxes our earnings and taxes how we
invest or spend those earnings—also violates
man’s natural right to the fruits of his
labor.
If taking the fruit of one’s labor is
fundamentally unjust, how can a community raise the
monies needed to build essential infrastructure and
provide public services? Land value taxation takes into
account not only the value of the land due to nature,
such as soil and climate, but also the great increase
in land values that result from population, commerce,
security and other civic services, and public
works—elements beyond the activity of the
property owner. The windfall increase in the rental or
land value of the land, contended Henry George and
others, is a surplus that can be tapped by the
community.32
Those suggesting positive consequences of shifting
taxation to rent have been accused of exaggerating its
beneficial effects.33 Freedom from punitive taxation is
not a panacea, but the infliction of arbitrary costs on
enterprise and the skewing of market signals such as
prices and profits is indeed a universal and major
cause of economic woes. It is not an exaggeration to
propose that removing these would have many beneficial
results, just as one’s health improves
considerably if one stops taking poison. ... read the whole
document
a synopsis of Robert V. Andelson and James M. Dawsey:
From Wasteland
to Promised land: Liberation Theology for a Post-Marxist
World
Some defenders of the status quo admit that all
land titles may be traced either to acts of force or
fraud (or to the more respectable-sounding "priority of
occupation"). But, they add, we cannot start over;
society has for centuries given legal sanction to
private landed property. Innumerable contracts have
been executed on the basis of this sanction, and these
include the good faith purchase of land. For society to
withdraw this sanction, they claim, would be a breach
of trust.
The passage of time, however,
cannot turn a wrong into a right. Kings and popes and governments never had the
moral right to vest in perpetual ownership what God
intended for the benefit of all. If the
acquisition of a benefit under the law were to
establish such a vested right, no law could ever be
amended, since it would invariably work to someone's
disadvantage.
Obviously, change that further rends the fabric
of society is usually self-defeating. And the vast
majority of beneficiaries of unjust structures -- the
beleagured middle classes -- are not intentional
wrongdoers but passive recipients of unearned wealth
from a flawed system they did not create. The
dismantling of these structures, therefore, should,
whenever possible, be done in ways that avoid excessive
hardship for them. But it must be done. Read
the whole synopsis
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