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Having answered some early critics of Henry George, I shall now turn to two modern critics, whose jointly written book appears in most reputable public and college libraries. The book is, Economic Problems of Modern Life, and the authors are Prof. S. Howard Patterson and Prof. Karl W. H. Scholz (McGraw-Hill Co.).

(Samuel Howard Patterson, born in 1892, is a Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and the author of several works on economic and social subjects. He is a member of the Pennsylvania State Educational Association, the American Economic Association, the American Association for Labor Legislation, and other societies.

Karl William Henry Scholz, born in 1886, is also a Professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the economic advisor of the Business Clinic, Inc., and a member of the Economic Association and the Academy of Political and Social Science.)

In Economic Problems of Modern Life, the following objections to the single tax are presented:

1. Communities may develop varying rents, and a rapidly growing community might hot derive sufficient revenues from the single tax to keep pace with its various collective needs.
   
2. A single tax would be undesirable, as there are other monopolies which would then not be taxed.
   
3. It would be inflexible; it could not be increased to meet urgent public requirements in timer of national emergency.
   
4. It would involve wholesale confiscation of land.
   
5. It would be difficult to administer, since it is practically impossible to distinguish between capital invested in permanent improvements on land, and unimproved lands. To appropriate the entire income from improvements would be to impose a tax in part upon the fruits of human labor. (Sic)

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The following are my answers to the aforementioned objections:

(1)

The fear that a rapidly growing community might not derive sufficient revenue from the single tax is easily assuaged by the fact that as a community grows, rent grows with it. Rent itself is an indicator of the rise of the people's needs. The greater the needs, the greater becomes the demand for land -- and the greater becomes the value of such land. Thus rent is always a measuring rod of the people's fluctuating demands.

(2)

It is true that under the single tax other monopolies would not be directly taxed, but such taxation is not necessary. All monopolies are based either on the private ownership of land or on inequalities which are the result of such ownership. The shutting off of productive enterprises by land monopoly results in unhealthy growths which feed upon the natural production of the community. These cancers, which we call monopolies, would disappear with the abolition of private ownership of land. With free access to the resources of nature, labor would receive wages commensurate with its produce, and capital would receive real, not spurious, interest. The competition of a free market would tend to destroy monopolistic practices.

(3)

If a national emergency should arise, the cost of which could not be covered by rent, the temporary recourse to other forms of taxation would not be an argument against the single tax any more than the sacrificing of human life during an emergency would be an argument against the preservation of life. However, it is difficult to imagine any emergency that could not be met by the rent of land. Furthermore, it is no argument at all to say that, because the single tax might not be sufficient, and might cause us to resort to other forms of taxation, we should therefore retain all the taxes we have today, most of which brutally stifle production.

(4)

The authors probably imagine that by using the word "confiscation" they will frighten people away from the single tax; It apparently does not occur to them that the word "confiscation" could much more justifiably be applied to our present system, in which human labor is continually being confiscated by the pompous "owners" of God's earth.

If the solution to our present-day ills were confiscation of land, it should not be regarded as a terrible thing. However, single taxers do not propose to confiscate land, or even titles. The present owners would be welcome to remain on the land they how "own," if they pay the full rent to the community. Only such rent would be collected, and since the community itself creates the rent, certainly its collection cannot be called, "confiscation."

(5)

This fifth objection is the one which appears most frequently as a refutation of the single tax. I have already answered it twice in previous articles, and believe that I can now state categorically that it is possible to distinguish between land and improvements.

The second part of the professors' fifth objection is somewhat obscure. Do they mean that under the single tax improvements would be taxed? If so, it is simple to point out that the single tax is one tax placed upon land values only. Whether improved or not, land bearing the same rental would be taxed equally. Improvements do not cause the rise of rent; the true cause is the growth of the community, which results both in improvements and the rise of rent.