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6. The Incidence and Effects of Taxation Part IV: The "Single Tax" on Ground Rent

Online Text Page from Power and Market: Government and the Economy, Ch. 4. Binary Intervention: Taxation

We have refuted elsewhere the various arguments that form part of the Henry Georgist edifice: the idea that “society” owns the land originally and that every new baby has a “right” to an aliquot part; the moral argument that an increase in the value of ground land is an “unearned increment” due to external causes; and the doctrine that “speculation” in sites wickedly withholds productive land from use.

4. The Economics of Location and Spatial Relations

Online Text Page from Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market

One very popular subdivision of economics has been “international trade.” In a purely free market, such as we are analyzing in the bulk of this work, there can be no such thing as an “international trade” problem. For nations might then possibly continue as cultural expressions, but not as economically meaningful units. Since there would be neither trade nor other barriers between nations nor currency differences, “international trade” would become a mere appendage to a general study of interspatial trade.

4. Land and Capital Goods

Online Text Page from Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market

The price of the unit service of every factor, then, is equal to its discounted marginal value product. This is true of all factors, whether they be “original” (land and labor) or “produced” (capital goods). However, as we have seen, there is no net income to the owners of capital goods, since their prices contain the prices of the various factors that co-operate in their production. Essentially, then, net income accrues only to owners of land and labor factors and to capitalists for their “time” services.

12. Property: The Appropriation of Raw Land

Online Text Page from Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market

As we have stated above, the origin of all property is ultimately traceable to the appropriation of an unused nature-given factor by a man and his “mixing” his labor with this natural factor to produce a capital good or a consumers’ good. For when we trace back through gifts and through exchanges, we must reach a man and an unowned natural resource. In a free society, any piece of nature that has never been used is unowned and is subject to a man's ownership through his first use or mixing of his labor with this resource.

5. Capitalization and Rent

Online Text Page from Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market

The subject of “rent” is one of the most confused in the entire economic literature. We must, therefore, reiterate the meaning of rent as set forth above. We are using “rent” to mean the unit price of the services of any good. It is important to banish any preconceptions that apply the concept of rent to land only.

4. The Time Market and the Production Structure

Online Text Page from Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market

The time market, like other markets, consists of component individuals whose schedules are aggregated to form the market supply and demand schedules. The intricacy of the time market (and of the money market as well) consists in the fact that it is also divided and subdivided into various distinguishable sub-markets. These are aggregable into a total market, but the subsidiary components are interesting and highly significant in their own right and deserve further analysis. They themselves, of course, are composed of individual supply and demand schedules.

Appendix B: "Collective Goods" and "External Benefits": Two Arguments for Government Activity

Online Text Page from Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market

One of the most important philosophical problems of recent centuries is whether ethics is a rational discipline, or instead a purely arbitrary, unscientific set of personal values. Whichever side one may take in this debate, it would certainly be generally agreed that economics—or praxeology—cannot by itself suffice to establish an ethical, or politico-ethical, doctrine. Economics per se is therefore a Wertfrei science, which does not engage in ethical judgments.

III. The Solution: Theory and History

Online Text Page from A Short History of Man: Progress and Decline, Ch. 1. On the Origin of Private Property and the Family

The technological invention, then, that solved (at least temporarily

7. Free Trade

Online Text Page from Liberalism: In the Classical Tradition, Ch. 3. Liberal Foriegn Policy

The theoretical demonstration of the consequences of the protective tariff and of free trade is the keystone of classical economics. It is so clear, so obvious, so indisputable, that its opponents were unable to advance any arguments against it that could not be immediately refuted as completely mistaken and absurd.

10. Autarky and Its Consequences

Online Text Page from Money, Method, and the Market Process, Ch. Trade

I. Terminological Remarks*

There is considerable ambiguity concerning the terminology to be used in dealing with the problems of international economic relations. It seems therefore expedient to start with a clear definition of some terms.

II. The Nationality Principle in Politics

Online Text Page from Nation, State, and Economy, Ch. Nation and State

1. Liberal or Pacifistic Nationalism

That politics should be national is a modern postulate.