Відео

+intajake Henry George was absolutely correct in recognising that land rent is naturally the property of the community. His advocacy for land tax as the appropriate method of public funding is also sound, not only in returning to the community what the community produces, but also as a mechanism to discourage dysfunctional price growth in rents and land values. The Medieval feudal land system can be viewed as an application of George's theory, as there can be seen to be a connection between Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas and Henry George with respect to land. Despite its economic and social effectiveness it is instructive to note how Medieval feudalism has been denounced by conservative modernists within the Church and Protestant critics outside it. Christ said far more in admonishment of avarice than of any other single vice, yet the avarice at the heart of conservative modernist Catholics and the 'success theology' common in Protestant religions is palpable. However, to the extent that a natural owner has the right to give as a gift what is naturally their property, and the gift becomes the just property of the recipient, it was just (though stupid) for modern communities to grant freehold title of land to individuals and taking it back without payment amounts to an injustice. Socialism is the forceful return to the community what the community had previously freely granted to individuals, and is therefore immoral. The levy of a tax is a different matter, and the government, as representative of the community has the right to levy taxes in any way it sees fit. This justifies the regime of taxes we now have, despite their shortcomings. A person (or the whole community) might be stupid, but that is not the same as being immoral. The current regime of taxation in most western countries may be stupid, but it is not immoral. This all suggests that the government, if it were wise, should adopt strategies aimed at moving taxation revenue to land tax and dissolving the others. However, the limit of the tax remains the funding needs of the community and no more. The total socialisation site revenue is socialism, and this is where both Georgists and their critics often get confused. Many Georgists argue that all the site revenue should be socialised, making them socialists, not Georgists (strictly speaking) since George did not advocate that. On the other side the critics of George claim that he did advocate the total socialisation of land rents, thereby allowing them to side step the strength of George's actual argument (especially as outlined in his "Science of Political Economy"). That tends to tar all Georgists as socialists, and ignore the many benefits of a single tax on land. The Church was caught in this confusion at the time of Leo XIII and Rerum Novarum, to the extent that the encyclical contains a thinly veiled criticism and rejection of Henry George as an instance of socialism. George wrote a book length pamphlet trying to make the necessary distinctions, but it was not successful in changing the opinion of the Church at the time and the neo-concervatives and their forebears were careful to keep George looking like a socialist in the eyes of most Catholics ever since. Despite this, many Catholics have seen the conformity of the essential elements of George's single tax with authentic Catholic Social Thought and authors such as Clune (1939) while not specifically associated with the Catholic Georgist movement have demonstrated its value for realising the Catholic vision of a just economic and social order.