Comments on Warren Samuels's "why the Georgist movement has not succeeded"

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, July, 2003 by Jerome F. Heavey

Warren Samuels has provided an extensive and well-reasoned list of answers to the question posed in his title. That he chose this title rather than "Why the Georgist Movement Has Failed' suggests that the movement is still a work in progress. He offers his own definition of "what would unequivocally constitute a successful Georgist movement... it would be widespread adoption of and approval for intensive taxation on unimproved land and on the land element of improved land, and possibly on such other sources as broadcast licenses, oil leases, landing rights, fishing quotas, taxi medallions, and so on, so as to capture an arguably significant proportion of economic rent." Professor Samuels notes that not everyone would agree with his definition of success or even with his definition of Georgism. It is from this point that I wish to begin my own comments.

First, we may ask whether there is something in existence that properly can be called The Georgist Movement, and I ask that of all three words. Is there a movement? Is it a single movement? Is it Georgist? If an action is not called Georgist may it be Georgist? For that matter, does calling an action Georgist make it Georgist?

There is a certain religiosity associated with George and the Georgist movement. At the funeral of Henry George, Dr. Edward McGlynn, the Catholic priest who was George's comrade in the founding of the Anti-Poverty Society, eulogized George with these words, "As truly as there was a man sent of God whose name was John, there was a man sent of God whose name was Henry George!" It is reported that the congregation gasped and then burst into a storm of applause. (1) Some years ago Bob Clancy, editor of The Henry George Journal, created a set of three paintings depicting human history from the era of the caveman to the late 20th century. In the center of each painting was the figure of a great lawgiver. The first painting was centered on Moses, the second on Jesus Christ. This audience will know before I say it that the third painting was centered on Henry George.

Non-Georgists have a tendency to describe Georgists as zealots, not without justification, and zealotry does tend to narrow the field of vision. Although many public policies consistent with George's thought have been enacted, Georgists who are true believers may not recognize these successes because they were not done in his name. Was George himself subject to this narrowness of vision or would he hold that "those who are not against me are with me"? Before I leave this protracted religious metaphor I will observe that of the approximately six billion human beings on this earth, five billion are not Christians. Do Christians conclude that Christianity has not succeeded, or do they reflect that there is still time before the end of the world? After all, it is only this year that we will celebrate the mere 123rd anniversary of Progress and Poverty.

Part of being a true believer is a habit of defining the concerns of the movement too narrowly, perhaps more narrowly than George would have defined them. I want to suggest that George was concerned with something much more fundamental than land rent and its taxation. In essence George's concept of economic justice was this: that human beings have an inalienable right to the product of their own labor. (2) That is why he was opposed to tariffs, because they are a tax on consumption, and therefore a tax on the wages of the worker. George called land the "field of all labor," (3) Land has no value without labor to work it. The idle person who rents land to workers takes part of their product in the form of land rent. The crime of land rent is not that it is unearned, but that it is taken from those who did earn it. The tyrant who supports his court and armies with the rents from his estates is no worse than the tyrant who supports them with a tax on bread. The Georgist movement doesn't appear to be much concern ed with the tax on bread, nor with other taxes that one would think would have drawn condemnation from George himself.

For example, whatever we may think of the Social Security program as an intergenerational Ponzi scheme, the chronic use of Social Security taxes to fund general government expenditures represents a massive failure to adopt the bedrock Georgist principle of de-taxing labor. That the Social Security tax does not draw the attention and ire of the present day Georgist movement demonstrates how narrow is the focus of that movement, and suggests, too, how unacquainted the movement may be with much of George's work.

From a broader definition of Georgism there follows a broader definition of what constitutes a Georgist success. Professor Samuels mentions a series of minor successes, in many jurisdictions, here and abroad, consisting of taxation of one or more of the elements of rent listed above. The present-day Georgist movement appears to be limited to a single practical, positive policy prescription, the two-rate real estate tax. The adoption of the two-rate tax in a number of local jurisdictions, notably in Pennsylvania, is, perhaps, the major part of that "series of minor successes" to which Professor Samuels refers. Let me mention another practical, positive policy that Henry George proposed: free trade. The European Economic Community, now evolved into the European Union, and the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA), would both, I think, be applauded by Henry George. It was for just such abolition of tariffs that he argued in Protection and Free Trade. It was because of Grover Cleveland's position on the t ariff question that George supported him as a candidate for president. Yet, NAFTA and the European Union are not likely to be counted as successes by members of the Georgist movement, because they were not done in his name. The reduction or abolition of tariffs ought to be viewed by Georgists as a success. Whether that success is due to the efforts of those who call themselves part of the Georgist movement is less important, if it is important at all. I don't know that Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman has ever been listed as a member of the Georgist movement, yet he readily quoted from Protection and Free Trade when testifying before a Senate committee on trade policy. There may be a lot of people who do not call themselves Georgists, but who act in accordance with Georgist principles. Are they part of the Georgist movement? Are their successes the Georgist movement's successes?