The Maoriland Worker

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 29, 22 September 1911, Page 10

The Maoriland Worker

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1911. US dliigio Sen.

Challenged by Single-Taxers, "The Maoriland Worker's" undertaking is to s<how, among other tilings, that the great claims made- on behalf of Single Tax in relation to the social problem will not boar searching examination, and that the claims are not justified in view of the analyses of advanced sociological thought. We have said that Single Tax is in resistance to Socialism. It is Socialism which matters. It is Socialism which oan remove the social and industrial punishments, miseries and injustices so glaringly obvious under the present— or competitive, or Individualistic —system. It is Socialism which is absolutely fundamental as a cure for the evils of unequal distribution of wealth and exploitation of the masses. It is Socialism, and not Single Tax, which can establish an order based on fellowship, reason, and justice. This "wonderful plan of salvation" —as Zola termed it in a luminous essay —is something so infinitely greater and grander than Single Tax that "The Worker" is happy in being its exponent and defender against all other schemes and systems. Let our amusingly impertinent "plain, blunt" controversialists have a little patience and they will learn what "The Worker" means by Socialism, or "Industry by the people, for the people, and of the people." Broadly speaking, the conflicting schools of thought represented by Socialism and Single Tax are the Collectivistic and Individualistic. Socialists believe In transforming the entire system of production and distribution by making these public functions. . Single Taxers believe in doing away with special privileges. Behind the proposal to abolish ell taxes save one single tax levied on the value of land, irrespective of iinprovemeints, are such ideas as: Competition is a fine thing; Customs duties are iniquitous; Industrial Acts of Parliament are curses; the interests of Labor and Capital are identical; Single Tax will free land, and free land will free capital; Single Tax will bring about equal opportunities, throw land oprn to all, give the laborer the full product of his labor. Socialists agree with Single-Taxers that the natural values of he soil belong to no individual but to the community. But Socialists do not -believe in th-o taxation of land values a,o a single tax and favor land taxation only as a part of a Socialist programme designed to secure the nationalisation of land and capital. The whole enso for Single Tax rests on the bottom contention that it will free- land, and in so doing, free capital and bring about fair competition;.

If it can. be shown, firstly, that Single Tax will not free land; secondly, that if Single Tax will free land, it caninot create fair competition; and, thirdly, that if Single Tax will create fair competition, it cannot solve the problem, then the theory must be regarded as exploded. 'Tention! Supposing Single Tax did throw land on the market, who would get it? -Would not the- man who gets it now —the man with capital ? Of what use would the land be to the poor man, seeing that capital is essential to its improvement? According even to the S.T. theory, the highest bidders would get the land, and the highest bidders would be the capitalists. That's obvious, isn't it? Not much chance for the unemployed here. But assume that the disinherited worker would get the land under S.T. Well, could he keep it? Not if it was the bes,t land in the world, for the capitalist who could afford to buy machinery—as did happen in connection with our mines—would speedily settle the worker a-s landlord and by buyingout or under-selling the poorer man drive him eventually off the land and set him to work on his (the capitalist's) behalf. Machinery is indispensable.: the tool cannot be beaten. As "today, the man without cash and the man deficient in ability would under Single Tax be at the mercy of the shrewd or cunning ox wealthy individual who comes to the top under any form of business competition (the curse of curses). This may be considered right, but thai isn't the point. It is that Single Tax will not free land nor competition. Wh.at freedom is there, can there, be in commercial competition. . The very term suggests struggle and dominance and aggrandisement, suggests "do others or they will do yon," suggests never-ending strife and conflict rather than peace and co-operation and mutual aid. Mutual" aid is the basis of Socialism. Human life is one. Free competition! —as well speak of free tyranny: as well glorify free prostitution. But wo digress. The Single-Taxcr will say that if the poor man couldn't get land he could get work. The land would bo forced into u&a and the holders would hire labor to improve it (the tax it is said would not touch improvements). What would happen? Labor would be despoiled of its product as it is now. The worker having no land of his own would live on that of his employer plus his landlord. "Im-prove-men is" would enrich the boss and impoverish the wage-slave. Wageslavery as now would be triumphant. And there can bo no equality .of opportunity under wage-slavery. Wageslavery could not exist under Socialism. As to free competition upon free land —there is a strip of land between Wellington, .and Auckland as froc as the air. (Although air is !C froo," it doer; not fill your bel]y, no.ii.her a.'ill "free-" land.) The strip is the public road. Now, why doesn't the r.>an. who believes that land is the only essential thina take his wheelbarrow or horse and dray and start thn transport of freight and passengers from Wellington

to Auckland or vice versa? Why? Far the conclusive reason that he ean/not compete with the capital of the railways. Free all the land between, any two given points between which ply railway or tramway (State-owned o>r privatelyowned), and the line wonild be the master of the situation. If you read Frank Norris' "Octopus" you will realise the power of the machine. The farmers owned their land and held magnificent crops —yet the private railway companies conquered both free land and good land. The machine-holding capitalist "ruled the roost." Under similar circumstances there are iihose groaning to-day on the land who, far from paying the "land value" or economic renb to the State, cannot even, pay a nominal rental. Free land would be as accessible to the owner of machinery as to the man without capital. Could a man. siuglehanded compete with the machine? He might compete with the individual, but what chance would he have against the invention that did the work of six or twelve men? He would soon be & mortgagor. Many hundreds of men on the land have had free homesteads, but have gone tinder because they could mot live against the large output and ,low prices of the capitalist-owned machinery. They have become hirelings; and there is nothing in Single Tax to remove the inequality of wealth and want cheek by jowl. Just as, notwithstanding free water, the fisherman with his small boat cannot compete with the ocean-going ship in carrying traffic across the Pacific, so with free land the owner of the Tool would subdue the non-owner, and the big owner the little owner. Socialism proposes that the nation—or "all the people"—shall be the owner of Land and Tool, and that production for use and not for profit shall supplant competition. The labor-power invested in land or capital shall be socialised. If the land wore free and you could only walk on it and another could drive on it, which would go the fastest in the competitive race? The owner of the Tool. Precisely. Let us imagine the daily newspaper office a piece of land free to every cootnpositor. Would that enable the comp. to sot any more type o<r enable him any the better to compete with the type-setting machine? In the competitive struggle the owner of the machine would have the conip. at his mercy even if the printer, having no plant, had free land by the mile. There is nothing in Single Tax to prevent the monopolisation of industries or to beat the Trust. Socialism would make the State —"all the people" —the monopolist and the trust. The notorious Broken Hill Proprietary mine is a good illustration of the capitalists' power under free land. Practically, the mine is surrounded by free land, as was once the mine itself. What made the Proprietary tae power it is? The ability to "finance," to capitalise. The value of the mine is largely represented by costly improvements. Apply Single Tax to the mine, and do you think dividends will disappear? And if the dividends do not disappear, aixl if huge profits can be made by monopolists and syndicators, is it not then as clear as the sun in the heavens that Single Tax can never solve the problem of the unequal distribution of wealth? No system can do so unless it removes competition, under which an advantage once gained tends to become cumulative. The evolution of competition ends in private monopoly. Monopolies, corporations, and syndicates are •the fruits of competition, and. are absolutely inevitable while competition lasts. Where private monopoly is, there, too, is private starvation. Even if in the free land adjacent to the Proprietary mine there was the mineral wealth of the "big" mine, of what use would it be to tho worker without capital? Capital could be had, of courso, but the capitalist would be the bencfiter of the workers' prospecting and toil. If the workers decided to work their "find J, co-operatively they could not compete with capital, in the form of machinery. Voluntary co-opcr-abion can be beaten by competitive capitalism, and frequently the former ends in the latter. TJiider Socialism the mine.—composed of machinery —would belong J >to the people, and could be developed *yid worked/W^ : tor by giving the toilers ."fehe their" labor,'instead, of ivin S thorny

email portion thereof and the balance e—capit-al —to idlers. We conclude with the following extract from an address on Single Tax delivered before the American Social Science Association by Prof. Seaman : — Individual labor, I venture to say, has never by itself produced anything in civilised society. Let us take the workman, fashioning the chair. The wood ho certainly has not produced. The- tools that he uses are the result of the contribution of others. The house in which he works, the clothes lie wears, the focd he eats (all of which are necessary to the making of & chair in civilised society) are the result of contributions from the community. His safety from robbery_ and pillage —nay, his very existence —is dependent on the ceaseless co-operation of tho society about him. How can it be said, in tlie face cf all this, that his own individual labor wholly creates anything? If it be answered that it pays for his tools, his clothing, his protection, etc., I say: So does the land-owner pay for the land he purchases. Nothing, I repeat, is wholly the result of unaided individual labor. No one has aright to s?y: This belongs completely and absolutely to mc, because 1 -alone have produced it. In truth, tins is the groundwork of Socialism. The Sock-.li.ste have been faamore logical than Henry George. They deny tho existence of any difference, save that in degree, between property m land and property in other capital. That is tho reason why the English enthusiasts are leaving land nationalisation and enrolling themselves under the. banners of Socialism. That is the reason why, in. this coimtry, the growth of Bellamy's nationalism ma.rks the gradual decadence >>-- tho Single Tax movement. Tho ,- " ; ./i the, reason why anyone who Vv.o to do v ith laboring tho^.remit ry is now E c "?ouinig ill every cert'bre iumdreds who were formerly Greorgites, font who now 'h,a,v<*~~fii'<!oine converted to , ' the newer >>7ins of Socialism. /