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Title: Land Nationalisation Author: Freedom Press (London) Date: October, 1887 Language: en Source: Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, Vol. 2, No. 13, online source http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=3022, retrieved on April 12, 2020.
The rupture between Henry George and the American Socialists at the
Syracuse Convention whence the Social-Democrat delegates were excluded,
will deeply afflict many of Henry George's supporters in this country.
Having received from his powerful attacks against the idle land-grabbers
their first impulse towards Socialism, and having seen in him one of
those who undoubtedly have contributed towards preparing the ground for
Socialist ideas in this country, they will be grieved to see the man
whom they considered as an earnest champion of the oppressed, turning
now his back on the workers and entering into a union with the
middle-class.
For a union with the middle-class it was, this Syracuse convention of
the United Labor Party, at which Labor was not represented, even by a
feeble minority; while lawyers (fourteen lawyers!), doctors, parsons,
employers, and grocers fully represented all fractions of the
middle-classes Its platform is a middle-class platform throughout.
Many of Henry George's supporters will be deeply grieved at what they
will consider as his new departure. But if they now revert to what was
the real meaning of his teachings since the very first day he began to
expound them, they will see that his present tactics constitute no new
departure at all; and they will understand why the middle-classes have
shown, from the beginning, so much sympathy with his teachings. The
present position of Henry George is a logical development of the ideas
he has professed since his first start; and the whole doctrine of land
nationalization--as it has been expounded and professed in this
country--never was anything but a theory inspired by the desire of the
middle-classes to have the lion's share in the profits and political
importance derived from the possession of land. What we say now is not
new; many years since, comrade Hyndman powerfully exposed the defects of
the land nationalization schemes; and neither Social-Democrats nor
Anarchists have entertained delusions as to their real meaning.
When the land-nationalizers denounce the idlers who pocket the
surplus-value given to land by the aggregate efforts of the whole of the
nation, one can but fully agree with them. But one is inclined to ask,
why they, who are so keenly conscious of the evils of private
appropriation of land and so boldly denounce them, are so blind as not
to perceive the evils which have arisen in our industrial and trading
century from the appropriation by the few of the unearned increment on
the industrial field? How is it to be explained that the identity of the
two means of appropriating for the rich the fruits of the labor of the
poor escapes them, while it is clear even to the most bourgeois of
writers? and how is it that they continue to launch their thunders
against one class only of the two great classes of exploiters?
The rank and file of the land-nationalizers -- those honest workers who
earnestly believe that land nationalization is preached in the interest
of the workers do not understand how anybody can denounce the
land-grabber, only that he may the better become a land-grabber himself,
and they answer to these questions, "Let us only undermine the landed
property, its evils are better felt and understood; then the capitalist
oppression will receive a mortal blow at the same time."
Immense illusion! because the real result of the land nationalization
schemes would be to divert from the middle-classes the blow which the
working-classes are preparing to strike at their exploiters, and to
direct tit to their only competitor in exploiting--the landlord. During
the Chartist movement the workman was used by the middle-classes to
snatch away the political power from the landed aristocracy. Now he is
to be used to snatch from them the land, and to hand over this real
foundation of all power to the middle-classes.
The rank and file are too honest to see it; but the leaders know well
that it is precisely so. And H. George himself is not mistaken on the
subject. In his last leader in the Standard (September 10th) he openly
says: "It is evident that the change would profit the capitalists and
laborers," and he goes so far as to argue that "we have few capitalists
who are not laborers."
The bourgeois leaders of the land nationalization movement are perfectly
aware that their scheme would first profit capitalists, just because it
would increase the range covered by capital and we know on that
everything which profits capitalists and widens the field of their :
powers will ultimately result in a further enslaving of the workmen.
In fact, two separate things must be distinguished in land
nationalization schemes: the title, and the contents; the banner with
its fine inscription, and the merchandise covered with the banner.
The banner which bears the words "Land Nationalization" may be
indicative of a grand aim; but all depends upon what is understood by
land nationalization. It may mean the nation taking possession of the
land; everybody entitled to till the soil if he likes, everybody
entitled freely to organize in order to produce plenty of food for
humanity. It may mean also and so it did in France by the end of the
last century--the State confiscating the estates of the priests and
nobles, and selling them to those who have the money to buy; that is
partly to peasants, but chiefly to the "Black Bands " of 1793, the bands
of money-grabbers enriched by speculating on the people's starvation, or
on card-board soled shoes supplied to the armies of the Republic. It may
mean even less, and so indeed it does, for in the mouths of our Land
Restorers and Nationalizers it simply means this: Everything remains as
it is. But a Parliament converted to the ideas of land nationalization
imposes heavy taxes on land values, and thus compels the rascal lords to
sell their estates. That is the bottom of all land nationalization
schemes, nothing else has been preached by their supporters.
No revolution, of course, no sudden changes. No expropriation of
manufactures, or railways; that would spoil the scheme. The East. end
people must continue to starve, and the West- end people to squander the
money; cottagers' families must continue to live on nine shillings
a-week; parliament be elected as it is now, money remain almighty; but
the landlords are to be compelled by the said parliament to sell their
estates.
The dream of the turnip-jam cotton-silk, and poisoned beer manufacturers
is realized. One poor furniture-millionaire who died the other day,
notwithstanding his millions, never could attain his ideal of being
proprietor of a "Shaftesbury Castle" and invite hunting parties there !
All his life long he was compelled to stamp his note-paper merely "Three
Poplar's Mansion!" Why did he not live on until the land taxation scheme
of the supposed Land Nationalizers had become a reality ? But the
retired butcher next door hopes not to die without having seen it, and
then he will finally buy the long-coveted corner of the park on the top
of the hill, and erect there his castle decorated with his leg-of-mutton
arms. I understand that he, too, is a Land Nationalizer! The nation--it
is he, and the nationalization is nothing but a taxation which will
permit him, too, to have a park and a castle. He can pay the Georgite
taxes for the corner of the park while Lord So-and-So is enable to pay
them for the whole of the park.
And, while our furniture-millionaire's and our retired butcher's will
peaceably enjoy life in their mansions, creating twenty parks where
there was one, the remainder of the land will be bought by
capital-owners who are now at their wit's end where to invest their
capital and a new landed aristocracy as bad as the old one will issue
from the scheme The bourgeois will become the owner of the land, the
manufactures, the railways, the trade!
Maybe, the amount of cultivated land and of corn grown in this country
will increase. There will be no need to import so much corn as we do
now. But, will the workmen be better paid for his labor? Who will pay
the land-taxes--who can pay any taxes at all if it is not the producer
of wealth, the laborer who pays them with his labor? And if he dares to
claim more than nine shillings a-week, can he not be ousted by Chinese
and Hindus who will be satisfied with three shillings a-week? Can the
laborer who has no capital beyond his own hands afford to compete with
the capital-owners in the prices they will offer to the State, in case
the State should retain its rights in land, and rent it to the person
who offers most for it ? Can the laborer compete with the capitalist,
who can afford to pay more because he can get good machinery, and import
Chinese to serve it, with the money stolen from the workman's pocket?
The middle-classes have understood at once that the land nationalization
scheme, being a mere scheme of land taxation, is much to their profit.
Therefore, their tenderness to the scheme and their harshness to
Socialism. What a pity that so many honest workers, led by loud phrases
of sympathy and by the word Nationalization inscribed on the banner,
have followed the Land Reformer's day without asking themselves, What
does it cover?
We are not grieved about what is described as a new departure of the
Land Nationalizers. There is no new departure at all; they have remained
what they were, advocates of land taxation. Feeling hindered by their
Socialist tail, they have merely cut it off. That in all. Those honest
workers who joined their leagues for their banner's sake without
inquiring more closely into the real content of their teachings, surely
will be grieved by their own mistake. But they will profit by the
lesson.
They will know that the great words, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,
Home Rule, Radicalism, Socialism, and Anarchism, may be mere words. All
depends upon the contents, and they will see that the contents may be
best judged by the means proposed to attain the end.
Shabby means imply a shabby end. Those who propose to change all the
present state of society,, put an end to oppression, put an end to
poverty, regenerate social life by a few shabby means-whatever the title
they assume-have no grand end before them. They usurp grand names to
cover the hollowness of their contents.