Philosophers, Statesman and Other Notables on the Land Problem and Land Value Capture / Taxation
John Locke (1632 - 1704): God gave the world in common to all mankind. When the "sacredness" of property is talked of, it should be remembered that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property.
Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) author of the Declaration of Independence wrote: "The earth is given as a common stock for men to labor and to live on... Wherever in any country there are idle lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. Everyone may have land to labor for himself, if he chooses; or, preferring the exercise of any other industry, may exact for it such compensation as not only to afford a comfortable subsistence, but wherewith to provide for a cessation from labor in old age." (Notes on Virginia, 1791)
Mark Twain (1835 - 1910): The earth belongs to the people. Every increase of population, extension of trade, every advance in the arts and sciences would, as we all know, increase the value of land, and the competition that would naturally arise would continue to force rents upward, so much so, that in many cases the tenants would have little or nothing left for themselves.
Tom Paine (1737 - 1809),who authored Common Sense which catalyzed the American Revolution and coined the phrase "the United States of America", wrote, "Men did not make the earth ... it is the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property... Every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds... from this ground-rent ... I ... propose ... to create a National Fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person ... (a) sum." (Agrarian Justice, 1795-6)
Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910): Solving the land question means the solving of all social questions... possession of land by people who do not use it is immoral – just like the possession of slaves.
Winston S. Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1940-1945, 1951-1955, Winner 1953 Nobel Prize for Literature:
Land, which is a necessity of human existence, which is the original source of all wealth, which is strictly limited in extent, which is fixed geographical position –- land, I say, differs from all other forms of property in these primary and fundamental conditions.
I have made speeches by the yard on the subject of land value taxation, and you know what a supporter I am of that policy.
It is quite true that the land monopoly is not the only monopoly which exists, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies -- it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all forms of monopoly.
Nothing is more amusing than to watch the efforts of our monopolist opponents to prove that other forms of property and increment are exactly the same, and are similar in all respects to the unearned increment in land.
It does not matter where you look or what examples you select, you will see that every form of enterprise, every step in material progress is undertaken only after the land monopolist has skimmed the cream off for himself and everywhere today, the man who wishes to put land to the highest use is forced to pay a preliminary fine in land values to the man who is putting it to an inferior use, or no use at all. All comes back to the land value.
(end Winston Churchill quotes)
Mikhail Gorbachev (b. 1931): Natural rent must be a part of public revenue -- what they don't earn but rather what they simply receive from the nation,
Sun Yat-Sen, 1866-1925) Chinese revolutionary, "Father of the Nation", first president of the Republic of China, co-founder of the Kuomintang wrote:
The teachings of Henry George will be the basis of our program of reform... The (land tax) as the only means of supporting the government is an infinitely just, reasonable, and equitably distributed tax, and on it we will found our new system. The centuries of heavy and irregular taxation for the benefit of the Manchus have shown China the injustice of any other system of taxation.
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