Henry George, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The community may take the whole rent, and it owes the holders nothing for it, because the value it takes was never theirs. Look at a lot in the heart of San Francisco, worth a hundred thousand dollars apart from any building on it. What gives it that value? Not the owner's exertion, but the fact that a hundred and fifty thousand people have settled around it.
The ten thousand it yields him each year must come out of the earnings of the workers of the community, for it can come from nowhere else.1 And the lot on the outskirts, in the very state nature left it, was worth nothing when a hundred people lived at Yerba Buena Cove and is worth three thousand now. What does its owner give for that? Nothing; the land was there before he was.2
Here lies the whole difference between land and the things men make. The value of a railroad or a patent medicine may express a monopoly, but it also expresses the exertion of labor and capital. The value of land expresses nothing but the advantage of appropriation, and it is created by the growth of the community. Hence the community can take it all without lessening the incentive to improvement, and without reducing the wages of labor or the reward of capital one iota.3
As to theft, I do not shrink from the word, though I would aim it rightly. The only utility of private ownership of land, as distinguished from possession, is the evil utility of giving the owner products of labor he does not earn. Until land yields something beyond what the owner's own labor and capital put into it, ownership is mere security of possession and has no value.
Its value begins when it enables him, as owner, to obtain the products of labor without exertion, and what he so obtains must be the fruits of others' sweat, taken from those who have a right to them.4 What hides the robbery is that in the most striking cases it is not of individuals but of the community. Rent in the economic sense can go only to the owner or to the community, and the man who pays enormous rent for a site in London or New York gets a return for what he pays and does not feel himself wronged.5
I once heard of a man in New York with no title whatever who collected rents for years on valuable ground, and those who paid never asked what right he had. They felt they had no right to such a place without paying for it, and gave no thought to the rights of all.6 When it is said that mankind's common opinion has sanctioned private property in land, I answer that this proves its justice no more than the once universal practice of the known world proved the justice of slavery.7
And as the slaveholder had no claim to be paid for the end of his wrong, neither has the landholder. I do not propose, however, to purchase or to confiscate. Purchase would be unjust; confiscation of the land itself, needless. Let the present holders keep possession of what they are pleased to call their land, and buy and sell and bequeath it.
We may safely leave them the shell if we take the kernel. It is not necessary to confiscate land; it is only necessary to confiscate rent.8 We already take some rent in taxation, and we have only to abolish, one after another, all other taxes and raise the tax on land values until it reaches, as near as may be, the full annual value of the land.
That does everything that formally taking the land and letting it out in lots would do, and it is a gentle road, a road without shock, which permits a great simplification of governmental machinery.9
The land is the gift of the Creator to all men, and its value is made by the whole community, not by the owner. Private property in land therefore cannot be defended on the score of justice: it gives a few men the power to levy on all the rest for permission to live and work.10 The remedy is to make land common property, and the way is not to confiscate land but to confiscate rent: let the holders keep their titles, take the rent in taxation, and abolish every other tax.11 No compensation is owed, any more than to the owner of a slave, because no one can acquire a right to do a wrong.1213
What gives that value? Not what its owner has done, but the fact that 150,000 people have settled around it. This lot yields its owner $10,000 annually. Where does this $10,000 come from? Evidently from the earnings of the workers of the community, for it can come from nowhere else.Our Land and Land Policy, Speeches, Lectures and Miscellaneous Writings
Intrinsically it is worth no more than when there were but a hundred people at Yerba Buena Cove. Then it was worth nothing.... What does he give for this? Nothing; the land was there before he was.Our Land and Land Policy, Speeches, Lectures and Miscellaneous Writings
It is not in any case the creation of the individual who owns the land; it is created by the growth of the community. Hence the community can take it all without in any way lessening the incentive to improvement or in the slightest degree lessening the production of wealth.Progress and Poverty, Memorial ed
The only utility of private ownership of land as distinguished from possession is the evil utility of giving to the owner products of labor he does not earn.The Condition of Labor, An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII
What largely keeps men from realizing the robbery involved in private property in land is that in the most striking cases the robbery is not of individuals, but of the community. For, as I have before explained, it is impossible for rent in the economic sense... to go to the user. It can go only to the owner or to the community.The Condition of Labor, An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII
It recently came to light in New York that a man having no title whatever had been for years collecting rents on a piece of land that the growth of the city had made very valuable.The Condition of Labor, An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII
Even were it true that the common opinion of mankind has sanctioned private property in land, this would no more prove its justice than the once universal practice of the known world would have proved the Justice of slavery.The Condition of Labor, An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII
I do not propose either to purchase or to confiscate private property in land. The first would be unjust; the second, needless.... We may safely leave them the shell, if we take the kernel. It is not necessary to confiscate land; it is only necessary to confiscate rent.Progress and Poverty, Memorial ed
it is only necessary to abolish, one after another, all other taxes now levied, and to increase the tax on land values till it reaches, as near as may be, the full annual value of the land.Protection or Free Trade
That which derives its existence from man and passes away like him, which is indeed but the evanescent expression of his labor, man may hold and transfer as the exclusive property of the individual; but how can such individual ownership attach to land, which existed before man was, and which continues to exist while the generations of men come and go— the unfailing storehouse that the Creator gives to man for " the…The Condition of Labor, An Open Letter to Pope Leo XIII
It is sometimes said that while this principle is manifestly just, and while it would be easy to apply it to a new country just being settled, it would be exceedingly difficult to apply it to an already settled country where land had already been divided as private property, since, in such a country, to take possession of the land as common property and let it out to individuals would involve a sudden revolution of…Protection or Free Trade
It is an axiom of statesmanship, which the successful founders of tyranny have understood and acted upon—that great changes can best be brought about under old forms. We, who would free men, should heed the same truth. It is the natural method. When nature would make a higher type, she takes a lower one and develops it. This, also, is the law of social growth. Let us work by it.Progress and Poverty, Memorial ed
If he once breaks through the tyranny of accustomed ideas and truly realizes that all men are equally entitled to the use of the natural opportunities for the living of their lives and the development of their powers, he will see the injustice, the wickedness, of demanding compensation for the abolition of the monopoly of land.A Perplexed Philosopher
The doctrine he is known by, called robbery by the Duke of Argyll, and the part of his work that survives in the economics of land-value taxation.