The Maccabaean
AUGUST, 1919
Taxation in the Jewish Commonwealth
Assistant Secretary of Labor, U. S. Government
This is the second of a series of three articles by the distinguished leader of the Single Tax movement in America. The entire series aims to elucidate the land tenure principles of the Pittsburgh Program. The first article appeared in the July number of THE MACCABAEAN and discussed the Second Clause of the Pittsburgh Program, which reads as follows:
"To insure in the Jewish national home in Palestine equality of opportunity, we favor a policy which, with due regard to existing rights, shall tend to establish the ownership and control of the land, of all the natural resources and of all public utilities by the whole people."
The third article, under the title "A Danger Signal to the Jewish Commonwealth," will appear in the September number of THE MACCABAEAN.
The present article deals with the Fifth Clause of the Pittsburgh Program, which is as follows:
"The fiscal policy shall be framed so as to protect the people from the evils of land speculation and from every other form of financial oppression."
CONSISTENTLY with its land tenure policy of ownership of their natural resources by the whole people, the Zionist fiscal policy contemplates protection of the people of Palestine from speculation in those resources. To quote the Pittsburgh resolutions of 1918, "the fiscal policy is to be framed so as to protect the people from the evils of land speculation."
It is necessary, therefore, since land speculation flourishes in terms of value, to understand the causes and characteristics of land value in order to appreciate the fiscal policy of the Jewish Commonwealth.
Land Value
The market prices, rentals, or royalties which monopolistic control of natural resources commands for permission to put those resources to appropriate uses, is land value.
Land value differs with reference to particular natural resources according to differences in intensity of demand.
Intensity of demand is determined by two factors. One is the inherent quality of the particular natural resource; the other is its location. A richly endowed natural resource might have but little value, because inaccessible for profitable use; whereas a natural resource of comparatively poor quality might have considerable value if situated so conveniently as to make its use profitable. One combining the poorest quality with the least convenient location would of
course have no value at all, while one combining the best quality with the most convenient location would have extraordinarily high value.
Consider, for illustration, a plot of ground which has good natural qualities as a site for dwellings or other buildings. The intensity of demand for it, and consequently its value, will differ according to its place on the map.
If in a place where no one wants a building, the plot will be in no present demand and will therefore have no present value as a building site. That fact would be expressed in terms of money, as that the plot is "not worth a dollar"; but fully interpreted this means that no one will give labor or the results of labor for permission to erect a building upon the plot.
Yet if the plot be in a place where a good many persons want buildings, it will be in considerable present demand for building purposes and therefore have a considerable value. This means that many persons will give a good deal of labor or its results for permission to use the plot as a building site. And if it be in a place where a vast throng of persons want buildings—the center of a great city, for instance—the same natural resource will have gigantic market value, be worth fabulous sums of money, command enormous labor-power or its results for permission to build upon it.
An impressive example of gigantic market values for