Austen Chamberlain, an English politician who (with his half-brother Neville) battled against proposed national land taxation from 1920-38, formulated the Tory strategy thus:
It is certain that if we do nothing the Radical Party will sooner or later establish their national tax, and once established in that form any Radical Chancellor ... will find it an easy task to give a turn of the screw. ... On the other hand if this source of revenue ... is once given to municipalities, the Treasury will never be able to put its finger in the pie again, ... [xv]
Parliament followed his lead, and thus set the stage for repealing Snowden's national land tax (it was enacted in 1931, but died aborning). Poor Neville Chamberlain was to be the goat of such penury when he had to let Hitler humiliate him, but meantime English landlords were spared paying taxes for any national purpose.
Upton Sinclair's 1934 run for Governor of California on the radical EPIC platform, with strong Georgist elements, was winning until the enemy found the formula of anti-Okie-ism. [xvi] Jackson Ralston, running single tax initiatives in the same decade, lost to the same force redoubled, for he based his campaign on "Home Rule" for cities. [xvii]
Evanescent Local Successes and their Failings
There have been many temporary and partial political successes, applying Georgist ideas locally, in spite of Cannan's Law. These are something like correcting bad vision using eye exercises instead of glasses. There are enough minor successes, after heroic efforts, to lead us on, but only to frustration. Local action alone cannot achieve the main goal. Here are a few such stories.
Some successes entail barriers to immigration. Alaska early on set out to limit its social dividend to citizens with five years prior residence in Alaska. It immediately lost out to the ghost of Madison. In Zobel v. Williams (1982) [xviii] the U.S. Supreme Court called this provision a barrier to interstate migration, and struck it down. Alaska's annual oil dividend survived, but were it not for Zobel might be much higher than today. Meantime, Alaskan landowners pay no property taxes. There goes much of the dividend, and Anchorage is the most sprawled city in North America.
Significantly, exclusionary zoning has NOT been ruled a barrier to interstate migration. Neither have state and city commuter taxes that tax the income of people who live in one state and work in another. It may depend on whose ox is being gored.
Ethnic political machines tap into local rents while restricting the benefits to a closed circle that is hard to enter. Their role in urban American history is well known. So are their shortcomings, which need no belaboring here. Note, though, that many machine politicians - Al Smith is the poster boy - have been friendlier to Georgist reforms than have patrician "good government" reformers.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
