|
Brotherhood, Fraternity
Henry George:
The Land Question (1881)
What I want to impress upon those who may read
this book is this:
The land question is nowhere a mere local
question; it is a universal question. It involves the
great problem of the distribution of wealth, which is
everywhere forcing itself upon attention.
It cannot be settled by measures which in their
nature can have but local application. It can be settled
only by measures which in their nature will apply
everywhere.
It cannot be settled by half-way measures. It can
be settled only by the acknowledgment of equal rights to
land. Upon this basis it can be settled easily and
permanently.
If the Irish reformers take this ground, they will
make their fight the common fight of all the peoples;
they will concentrate strength and divide opposition.
They will turn the flank of the system that oppresses
them, and awake the struggle in its very intrenchments.
They will rouse against it a force that is like the force
of rising tides.
What I urge the men of Ireland to do is to
proclaim, without limitation or evasion, that the land,
of natural right, is the common property of the whole
people, and to propose practical measures which will
recognize this right in all countries as well as in
Ireland.
What I urge the Land Leagues of the United States
to do is to announce this great principle as of universal
application; to give their movement a reference to
America as well as to Ireland; to broaden and deepen and
strengthen it by making it a movement for the
regeneration of the world – a movement which shall
concentrate and give shape to aspirations that are
stirring among all nations.
Ask not for Ireland mere charity or sympathy. Let
her call be the call of fraternity: "For
yourselves, O brothers, as well as for us!" Let her
rallying cry awake all who slumber, and rouse to a common
struggle all who are oppressed. Let it breathe not old
hates; let it ring and echo with the new
hope!
In many lands her sons are true to her; under many
skies her daughters burn with the love of her. Lo! the
ages bring their opportunity. Let those who would honor
her bear her banner to the front!
The harp and the shamrock, the golden sunburst on
the field of living green! emblems of a country without
nationality; standard of a people downtrodden and
oppressed! The hour has come when they may lead the van
of the great world-struggle. Types of harmony and of
ever-springing hope, of light and of life! The hour has
come when they may stand for something higher than local
patriotism; something grander than national independence.
The hour has come when they may stand forth to speak the
world's hope, to lead the world's advance!
Torn away by pirates, tending in a strange land a
heathen master's swine, the slave boy, with the spirit of
Christ in his heart, praying in the snow for those who
had enslaved him, and returning to bring to his
oppressors the message of the gospel, returning with good
to give where evil had been received, to kindle in the
darkness a great light–this is Ireland's patron
saint. In his spirit let Ireland's struggle be. Not
merely through Irish vales and hamlets, but into England,
into Scotland, into Wales, wherever our common tongue is
spoken, let the torch be carried and the word be
preached. And beyond! The brotherhood of man stops not
with differences of speech any more than with seas or
mountain-chains. A century ago it was ours to speak the
ringing word. Then it was France's. Now it may be
Ireland's, if her sons be true.
But wherever, or by whom, the word must be spoken,
the standard will be raised. No matter what the Irish
leaders do or do not do, it is too late to settle
permanently the question on any basis short of the
recognition of equal natural right. And, whether the Land
Leagues move forward or slink back, the agitation must
spread to this side of the Atlantic. The Republic, the
true Republic, is not yet here. But her birth-struggle
must soon begin. Already, with the hope of her, men's
thoughts are stirring.
Not a republic of landlords and peasants; not a
republic of millionaires and tramps; not a republic in
which some are masters and some serve. But a republic of
equal citizens, where competition becomes cooperation,
and the interdependence of all gives true independence to
each; where moral progress goes hand in hand with
intellectual progress, and material progress elevates and
enfranchises even the poorest and weakest and
lowliest.
And the gospel of deliverance, let us not forget
it: it is the gospel of love, not of hate. He whom it
emancipates will know neither Jew nor Gentile, nor
Irishman nor Englishman, nor German nor Frenchman, nor
European nor American, nor difference of color or of
race, nor animosities of class or condition. Let us set
our feet on old prejudices, let us bury the old hates.
There have been "Holy Alliances" of kings. Let us strive
for the Holy Alliance of the people.
Liberty, equality, fraternity!
Write them on the banners. Let them be for sign and
countersign. Without equality, liberty cannot be; without
fraternity, neither equality nor liberty can be
achieved.
- Liberty–the full freedom of each bounded
only by the equal freedom of every other!
- Equality–the equal right of each to the
use and enjoyment of all natural opportunities, to all
the essentials of happy, healthful, human
life!
- Fraternity–that sympathy which links
together those who struggle in a noble cause; that would
live and let live; that would help as well as be helped;
that, in seeking the good of all, finds the highest good
of each!
"By this sign shall ye conquer!"
"We hold these truths to be
self-evident–that all men are created equal; that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness!"
It is over a century since these words rang out.
It is time to give them their full, true meaning. Let the
standard be lifted that all may see it; let the advance
be sounded that all may hear it. Let those who would fall
back, fall back. Let those who would oppose, oppose.
Everywhere are those who will rally. The stars in their
courses fight against Sisera!...
read the whole article
Henry George: The Condition of
Labor — An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII in response
to Rerum Novarum (1891)
This right of private possession in things created by
God is however very different from the right of private
ownership in things produced by labor. The one is
limited, the other unlimited, save in cases when the
dictate of self-preservation terminates all other rights.
The purpose of the one, the exclusive possession of land,
is merely to secure the other, the exclusive ownership of
the products of labor; and it can never rightfully be
carried so far as to impair or deny this. While any one
may hold exclusive possession of land so far as it does
not interfere with the equal rights of others, he can
rightfully hold it no further.
Thus Cain and Abel, were there only two men on earth,
might by agreement divide the earth between them. Under
this compact each might claim exclusive right to his
share as against the other. But neither could rightfully
continue such claim against the next man born. For since
no one comes into the world without God’s
permission, his presence attests his equal right to the
use of God’s bounty. For them to refuse him any use
of the earth which they had divided between them would
therefore be for them to commit murder. And for them to
refuse him any use of the earth, unless by laboring for
them or by giving them part of the products of his labor
he bought it of them, would be for them to commit theft.
...
We propose — leaving land in the private
possession of individuals, with full liberty on their
part to give, sell or bequeath it — simply to levy
on it for public uses a tax that shall equal the annual
value of the land itself, irrespective of the use made of
it or the improvements on it. And since this would
provide amply for the need of public revenues, we would
accompany this tax on land values with the repeal of all
taxes now levied on the products and processes of
industry — which taxes, since they take from the
earnings of labor, we hold to be infringements of the
right of property.
This we propose, not as a cunning device of human
ingenuity, but as a conforming of human regulations to
the will of God.
God cannot contradict himself nor impose on his
creatures laws that clash.
If it be God’s command to men that they should
not steal — that is to say, that they should
respect the right of property which each one has in the
fruits of his labor;
And if he be also the Father of all men, who
in his common bounty has intended all to have equal
opportunities for sharing;
Then, in any possible stage of civilization, however
elaborate, there must be some way in which the exclusive
right to the products of industry may be reconciled with
the equal right to land.
If the Almighty be consistent with himself, it cannot
be, as say those socialists referred to by you, that in
order to secure the equal participation of men in the
opportunities of life and labor we must ignore the right
of private property. Nor yet can it be, as you yourself
in the Encyclical seem to argue, that to secure the right
of private property we must ignore the equality of right
in the opportunities of life and labor. To say the one
thing or the other is equally to deny the harmony of
God’s laws.
But, the private possession of land, subject to the
payment to the community of the value of any special
advantage thus given to the individual, satisfies both
laws, securing to all equal participation in the bounty
of the Creator and to each the full ownership of the
products of his labor.
Nor do we hesitate to say that this way of securing
the equal right to the bounty of the Creator and the
exclusive right to the products of labor is the way
intended by God for raising public revenues. For we are
not atheists, who deny God; nor semi-atheists, who deny
that he has any concern in politics and legislation.
...
... Suppose that to your Holiness as a judge of morals
one should put this case of conscience:
I am one of several children to whom our father left
a field abundant for our support. As he assigned no
part of it to any one of us in particular, leaving the
limits of our separate possession to be fixed by
ourselves, I being the eldest took the whole field in
exclusive ownership. But in doing so I have not
deprived my brothers of their support from it, for I
have let them work for me on it, paying them from the
produce as much wages as I would have had to pay
strangers. Is there any reason why my conscience should
not be clear?
What would be your answer? Would you not tell him that
he was in mortal sin, and that his excuse added to his
guilt? Would you not call on him to make restitution and
to do penance? ...
Consider the moral teachings of the Encyclical:
- You tell us that God owes to man an
inexhaustible storehouse which he finds only in the
land. Yet you support a system that denies to the great
majority of men all right of recourse to this
storehouse.
- You tell us that the necessity of labor is
a consequence of original sin. Yet you support a system
that exempts a privileged class from the necessity for
labor and enables them to shift their share and much
more than their share of labor on others.
- You tell us that God has not created us for
the perishable and transitory things of earth, but has
given us this world as a place of exile and not as our
true country. Yet you tell us that some of the exiles
have the exclusive right of ownership in this place of
common exile, so that they may compel their
fellow-exiles to pay them for sojourning here, and that
this exclusive ownership they may transfer to other
exiles yet to come, with the same right of excluding
their fellows.
- You tell us that virtue is the common
inheritance of all; that all men are children of God
the common Father; that all have the same last end;
that all are redeemed by Jesus Christ; that the
blessings of nature and the gifts of grace belong in
common to all, and that to all except the unworthy is
promised the inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven! Yet
in all this and through all this you insist as a moral
duty on the maintenance of a system that makes the
reservoir of all God’s material bounties and
blessings to man the exclusive property of a few of
their number — you give us equal rights in
heaven, but deny us equal rights on
earth!
It was said of a famous decision of the Supreme Court
of the United States made just before the civil war, in a
fugitive-slave case, that “it gave the law to the
North and the nigger to the South.” It is thus that
your Encyclical gives the gospel to laborers and the
earth to the landlords. Is it really to be wondered at
that there are those who sneeringly say, “The
priests are ready enough to give the poor an equal share
in all that is out of sight, but they take precious good
care that the rich shall keep a tight grip on all that is
within sight”?
... read
the whole letter
Henry George:
In Liverpool: The Financial Reform Meeting at the Liverpool
Rotunda (1889)
In the United States, carried away by the heat of the
great struggle, we allowed protection to build itself up.
We have to now make the fight that you have partially won
over here; but, in making that fight, we make the fight
for full and absolute free trade. I don't believe that
protection can ever be abolished in the United States
until a majority of the people have been brought to see
the absurdity and the wickedness of all tariffs, whether
protective or for revenue only (hear, hear); have been
brought to realize the deep truth of the fatherhood of
God and the brotherhood of man; have been led to see what
Mr. Garrison has so eloquently said, that the interests
of mankind are harmonious, not antagonistic, that one
nation cannot profit at the expense of another, but that
every people is benefited by the advance of other peoples
— (cheers) — until we shall aim at a free
trade that will enable the citizen of England to enter
the ports of the United States as freely as today, the
citizen of Massachusetts crosses into New York. (Cheers)
...
read the whole speech
Thomas Flavin, writing in The
Iconoclast, 1897
Now, it is quite true that all taxes of whatever
nature are paid out of the products of labor. But must
they be for that reason a tax on labor products. Let us
see.
I suppose you won't deny that a unit of labor applies
to different kinds of land will give very different
results. Suppose that a unit of labor produces on A's
land 4, on B's 3, on C's 2 and on D's 1. A's land is the
most, and D's is the least, productive land in use in the
community to which they belong. B's and C's represent
intermediate grades. Suppose each occupies the best land
that was open to him when he entered into possession.
Now, B, and C, and D have just as good a right to the use
of the best land as A had.
Manifestly then, if this be the whole story, there
cannot be equality of opportunity where a unit of labor
produces such different results, all other things being
equal except the land.
How is this equality to be secured? There is but one
possible way. Each must surrender for the common use of
all, himself included, whatever advantages accrues to him
from the possession of land superior to that which falls
to the lot of him who occupies the poorest.
In the case stated, what the unit of labor produces
for D, is what it should produce for A, B and C, if these
are not to have an advantage of natural opportunity over
D.
Hence equity is secured when A pays 3, D, 2 and C, 1
into a common fund for the common use of all--to be
expended, say in digging a well, making a road or bridge,
building a school, or other public utility.
Is it not manifest that here the tax which A, B and C
pay into a common fund, and from which D is exempt, is
not a tax on their labor products (though paid out of
them) but a tax on the superior advantage which they
enjoy over D, and to which D has just as good a right as
any of them.
The result of this arrangement is that each takes up
as much of the best land open to him as he can put to
gainful use, and what he cannot so use he leaves open for
the next. Moreover, he is at no disadvantage with the
rest who have come in ahead of him, for they provide for
him, in proportion to their respective advantages, those
public utilities which invariably arise wherever men live
in communities. Of course he will in turn hold to those
who come later the same relation that those who came
earlier held to him.
Suppose now that taxes had been levied on labor
products instead of land; all that any land-holder would
have to do to avoid the tax is to produce little or
nothing. He could just squat on his land, neither using
it himself nor letting others use it, but he would not
stop at this, for he would grab to the last acre all that
he could possibly get hold of. Each of the others would
do the same in turn, with the sure result that by and by,
E, F and G would find no land left for them on which they
might make a living.
So they would have to hire their labor to those who
had already monopolized the land, or else buy or rent a
piece of land from them. Behold now the devil of
landlordism getting his hoof on God's handiwork! Exit
justice, freedom, social peace and plenty. Enter robbery,
slavery, social discontent, consuming grief, riotous but
unearned wealth, degrading pauperism, crime breeding,
want, the beggar's whine, and the tyrant's iron heel.
And how did it all come about? By the simple expedient
of taxing labor products in order that precious
landlordism might laugh and grow fat on the bovine
stupidity of the community that contributes its own land
values toward its own enslavement!
And yet men vacuously ask, "What difference does it
make?"
O tempora! O mores! To be as plain as is necessary, it
makes this four-fold difference.
- First, it robs the community of its land
values;
- second, it robs labor of its wages in the name of
taxation;
- third, it sustains and fosters landlordism, a most
conspicuously damnable difference;
- fourth, it exhibits willing workers in enforced
idleness; beholding their families in want on the one
hand, and unused land that would yield them abundance
on the other.
This last is a difference that cries to heaven for
vengeance, and if it does not always cry in vain, will W.
C. Brann be able to draw his robe close around him and
with a good conscience exclaim, "It's none of my fault; I
am not my brother's keeper."
|
To share this page with a friend:
right click, choose "send," and add your
comments.
|
|
|
|
Red links have not been
visited; .
Green links are pages you've seen
|
Essential Documents pertinent
to this theme:
essential_documents
|
|