Single‐Tax Movement

Single‐Tax Movement. The Single‐Tax movement was inspired by the plan of the San Francisco journalist and political economist Henry George (1839–1897), first articulated in an 1871 pamphlet and then in Progress and Poverty (1879), to return the profits of growth to society by imposing a uniform land tax that would end land monopoly and real‐estate speculation. Rising land values, George argued, were created by community development rather than by landlords and real estate speculators who unjustly reaped the benefits of economic growth by paying lower taxes on undeveloped land. The “Single Tax,” so dubbed by Thomas Shearman in 1887, proposed that the government appropriate unearned real‐estate profits by setting a uniform tax on all land whether developed or not. George envisioned the Single Tax as a great panacea. Speculators, faced with the prospect of paying high taxes on non‐income‐producing lands, would be forced to sell or develop their holdings. This would spur the construction of more homes and factories, thereby lowering rents, increasing profits and wages, and alleviating unemployment and urban congestion. Moreover, the Single Tax would generate funds sufficient to eliminate all other taxes and yet leave a surplus that would be returned to citizens in the form of increased public services.

Progress and Poverty became a best‐seller, and the Single‐Tax movement attracted national and international attention during George's trips to England and Ireland in the 1880s and his unsuccessful campaigns for mayor of New York City in 1886 and 1897. Despite George's death in 1897, the movement over the next several decades spread throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Denmark, and Hungary. The Single Tax was opposed by economists, who thought it unworkable, and by wealthy landowners, churches, and farmers who feared losing their lands or profits. Although the movement declined after the 1920s, a number of Single‐Tax advocates succeeded in shifting the burden of local property taxes from buildings and improvements to land. In 2000, Single Tax groups still operated in over twenty‐two countries.
See also Gilded Age; Populist Era; Radicalism; Taxation.

Bibliography

Charles Albro Barker , Henry George, 1955.
Robert V. Adelson, ed., The Critics of Henry George: A Centenary Appraisal of Their Strictures on Progress and Poverty, 1979.

Steven J. Ross