Natural Law Governing the Rate of Interest |
[Reprinted from Land and Freedom, March-April 1938]
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Mr. Quinby's "Fundamentals of Interest" (Jan.-Feb.) properly
condemns any effort to control interest. The law of supply and demand must do it naturally, regardless of futile beliefs, and all Single
Taxers agree that any man-made laws about it must be worse than
useless.
But they also agree that rent-yield from land investments (about
one-half of all) is unnatural, and that it will be cut off by Single Tax:
That this result is certain; and that when this field is cut off only
business investments will remain.
(1) Is it honest or sensible to ignore these certain results of Single
Tax?
Whether or not universal prosperity will increase "savings for
safety" it is certain that users of capital will not have to compete for
it against the land-owning lure. (Does any Single Taxer question
the truth of Mr. Thompson's statement, just above Mr. Quinby's
article, that "so long as wealth can purchase land that will yield
a revenue just so long will man refuse to loan wealth without demanding a similar return?"
(2) Is not the direct effect of present rent yield on yields generally,
obvious and important enough to call for honest recognition by Single
Taxers?
Everybody knows that nature furnishes special help in the producing of pigs, wheat, honey, etc. Nearly everybody knows that
these are unlimitedly producible just as machine products are; and
that their lowered prices similarly benefit all consumers not the
owners in particular.
(3) Must Single Taxers discredit their cause as well as their own
intelligence and honesty, by not knowing or not admitting this natural
general distribution of these gifts of nature?
Unless we honestly answer these questions we hurt our cause as
well as our own repute.
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