The prosperity of this country depends upon the purchasing power of the consumer; and more purchasing power is the need of the great majority. Some say, "Increase wages and you increase purchasing power." But increased wages, unless we adopt the right tax system, will increase the cost of production and increase prices; the high prices will off-set the high wages, as high wages will buy no more at high prices than low wages at low prices; so there is no increase in purchasing power if high wages are off-set by high prices.

To solve this problem, we must follow truth and commonsense, step by step. If the price of human effort is low and the price of things is high, the great mass of consumers will have little purchasing power. It is plain, therefore, that purchasing power depends upon and is distributed through relative prices, and that, to solve this problem, we must know how to increase wages and salaries, and the earnings of every useful business man, without increasing prices of other things.

Now it happens that a simple change from the wrong tax system to the right tax system will change the prices of everything; it will increase the price of human effort; but it will reduce the price of everything else. Under the right tax system there will be only one tax; this tax is therefore called the Single Tax. This one tax will tax land only; all improvements will be exempt. By means of this one tax, the ground rent will be taken for all and for public use; other taxes will then be unnecessary and abolished. This will take taxes out of prices.

The right system will increase wages but it will reduce rent and interest and take taxes out of prices; in this way it will take out of prices more than is put in by the higher wages; and while wages will be higher, the price of everything will be lower.

The right tax system will also make employment available to every idle person by increasing production and consumption of goods and by making access to the natural resources free to capital and labor. This will also increase wages and lower rents. Under the wrong tax system, labor-saving inventions compete with the workers and take the jobs, as machines work cheaper than men. This lessens wages and increases ground rent; but under the right tax system labor-saving inventions will be called wealth-producing inventions and will shorten the hours of work, increase wages, make prices lower and increase the purchasing power of human effort. Under these conditions, with everybody employed and working, the total production of wealth and the total purchasing power of the nation will increase enormously; and, with high wages and low prices, this enormous wealth would be justly distributed and the problem would be solved; prosperity would reach everybody and every business.

This is the great secret of prosperity and of the square deal for everybody in the production and distribution of the wealth that is daily being produced; no one can imagine the far reaching prosperity that will result from the right tax system. "Great Oaks from little acorns grow" and mighty forces may be set in motion by one push of an electric button; and the whole economic system governing employment and the distribution of the wealth that is daily being produced may be revolutionized by such an apparently little insignificant thing as a change from the wrong system to the right system of taxation.