MARXISM AND THE SINGLE TAX

Maoriland Worker, Volume 10, Issue 447, 1 October 1919, Page 4

MARXISM AND THE SINGLE TAX

BY J. F. KIRK

The argument of "Seneca Simplex" support of the contend/ion of the Single Tax that giving the modern- working class acces.s, to the. land w-oujei. abcii-.i _h» slavery of ths. Labors, to the Capitalist will not withstand ranch examisatcCa. The quotations of "Seneca Simple^' - from Marx to siiow that the basis of Capitalism is the Expropriation of the Peasant And. small produpw from the land, are in themeslye* correct enough; but his cocclustion thpt by giving free land to the modern n.t/_lt?F ho would b e freed from exploitation ip> disproved by facts. To produce agricultural commoditiep to cell on the modern market require* the. three factors mentioned by hin» ; ; Land, Labor and Capital. As the propertyle-s wage slave poftsesfees no Capital worth mentioning he would be qiate harmless when placed on tie free land. In) parts of Australia there have been farmers already established on freehold properties, with farms ia going order, and with less to pay out in taxes thaJt they would have under the. Single- %S,x. In bad seasons some af ttteso farmers have been driven completely bankrupt, owing to their being unable to compete with big capital in agriculture. Many others were heavily mortgaged to the Capitalist to the extent of him being t_t& actual owner of their crops before ever the crops were cut. In such conditions, as £hese small farming bacama •_•»- ---possible in certain lines, owing to lack of capital. Even, under &uch climatic conditions as are favourable to small farming- at the present time, th© laborer could not possibly hope to compete with the peasants who are already in possesion of tools lsnpwledge of agricultnre. Th c Canadian Government gives land free to tbos© who fondly imagine that small farming offers a means of escap* from capitalism. Thos© of the. eefcUers who are unable to buy the expensive modern means of production necessary to competitive production, are soan enslaved to the Harvester Companies, who, ar c able to secure a large portion of ths products of the farmerY labor, to pay the interest on the valu© of tht maohinery they have advanced to biro. Thus with free land and no capital the peasant is enslaved, and often to » greater extent than the city slave, a* ho will do more than the normal working day's work for little mere than * baro subsistence.

It does not follow that because the laborer was forced off the soil in England and elsewhere three, or four centuries ago and driven into th. towis, tbat a class of landless slaves could be created in no other way. The average birth-rate-of a peasant family is enough to produce landless offspring in a few generations, as there is a limit to the subdivision of farm property for ol> vious technical reasons.

Neither does it follow that becaus* the forcing of peasants from the land was originally tbe basis of the rapid establishment of capitalism, that Putting seme of tho working class back on the land will abolish the capitalist system. Bather it is a mode, in some lands, for its perpetuation; a mode of absorption of the unemployed aiter the rtiar. If tho peasant* of a district were in the middle of a floed they might reason as follows: It wa.' because we had, no bank's on the river that thi* di* J astrous flood is over cur lands.; if only w e could put up a bank now, the flood would soon subside. ThM_ do Single Taxers reason on the relation of original expropriation to modern exploita. tion. The dominant factor in modern exploitation is not land ownership but the 'ownership of Capital- T_e landowning class hav e been falling behind as such, in comparisc__ to the Capitalist class proper. Tile increasing taxation of landlords represents a phase of the increasing domination of the industrial Capitalist over all other sections of the exploiting class. How well to_> Single Taxer keeps p?c« with the time*, is shown by the fact that the whole ground rent of the countries of Europe that were engaged in the war would not be enough to meet the demands of the modern imperialist State for taxation. Also, that in some of thiosessa c countries the land is already chopped into almost as small allotments as can be worked payably at all; while the standard of living of the working class is even lower than iv countries where land ownership i» on a larger scale: compar© Belgium with England for instance. The illustration of the Colonies of the present day does not offer us any mor e oi emancipation by free land than the pas.. While ifc is true that the opportunity for the wag© worker jn colonic, to go on the land lessens the competition for jobs on the labor markets of such countries, and so tends to a higher standard of living; this doe» not prevent the formation of a classof idle dividend drawers in such conn* tries. Even if the land were made open to all in New Zealaind at the present day it would only mean that those who would possess the means to stock th* most land would get th© most of it. If "Seneca Simplex were given 50 acres of tbje richest virgin _oil in New Zealand fr«o he could not' make wages off it, if he had no. mere capital than thi* averago wage slave has at th c present. Still less could he pay the single ta* on it, and he would be forced to return to wage, labor immediately. Marx's own opinion of the single tax Bible, "Progress and Poverty" is summed up aa follows: "It is a frank statement of th© hatred felt by the industrial capitalist for the landlord "who seems to him a useless factor in production."