Book IX:
"Effects of the Remedy"

Chapter 1: "Of the Effect upon the Production of Wealth"
Chapter 2: "Of the Effect upon Distribution
and Thence upon Production"
Chapter 3: "Of the Effect upon Individuals and Classes"
Chapter 4: "Of the Changes That Would Be Wrought
in Social Organization and Social Life"

Chapter 1:
"Of the Effect upon the Production of Wealth"

1. Why would a community wish to foster private enterprise? 435

"Every productive enterprise, besides its return to those who undertake it, yields collateral advantages to others."

2. How can shifting taxes from labor and capital to land diminish the burden on productive enterprise?

A tax on land values merely changes the identity of rent-receivers (from a minority of individuals and corporations, to the whole community), but does not raise the cost of using land. It obviates taxes conditioned upon production and exchange, which diminish supply, raise prices, lower real wages, and diminish demand.
"The more that labor and capital produce, the greater grows the common wealth in which all may share. And in the value or rent of land is this general gain expressed in a definite and concrete form. Here is a fund which the state may take while leaving to labor and capital their full reward. With increased activity of production this would commensurately increase."

3. How would the single tax affect the land market? 436 ff.

The selling price of land would fall; speculation would stop, and land now withheld from use would be thrown open to improvement, but on the frontiers and in the well-settled districts. "The man who wished to hold land without using it would have to pay very nearly what it would be worth to any one who wanted to use it." (437)
This would apply to agricultural, mineral, and urban land.
"Everywhere that land had attained a value, taxation, instead of operating, as now, as a fine upon improvement, would operate to force improvement."

4. How would the single tax affect small entrepreneurs? 438

Farmers, builders, manufacturers would not have to pay out large sums, or take out huge mortgages, in order to get access to land. They would pay for the site year to year in taxes; but they would not have to pay taxes on their labor and capital.

5. How would the single tax affect the labor market? 438-439

"Competition would be no longer one-sided. …; employers would everywhere be competing for laborers, and wages would rise to the fair earnings of labor. For into the labor market would have entered the greatest of all competitors for the employment of labor, a competitor whose demand cannot be satisfied until want is satisfied—the demand of labor itself." Laborers can "become their own employers upon the natural opportunities freely opened to them by the tax which prevented monopolization."
Unemployment and depressions would vanish; "demand would keep pace with supply, and supply with demand; trade would increase in every direction, and wealth augment on every hand."

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Chapter 2:
" Of the Effect upon Distribution and Thence upon Production"

1. How would George distribute the benefits of public spending? 440

The following is implicit, but important. Some benefits, such as schools, would be like social dividends, of equal value to all. Many public works are of more value to some than others, because they serve some lands and not others. But these benefits would be recaptured by land taxation. The only benefits that would stay with the public would be those distributed equally.

2. Did George see any hope for the majority of men who do not think? 444-45

He sees prosperity and justice as removing the mental blocks that now chain most people to mediocrity, resistance to learning and progress, and general blockheadedness.

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Chapter 3:
"Of the Effect upon Individuals and Classes"

1. What future does George see for the rate of interest? 448

He mentions only in passing that the effect of land taxation is to make interest rates rise. He would have leaned much heavier on this point had he foreseen how seriously people would come to take the forecasts of Mill, Marx and Keynes about interest rates falling to zero.
George correctly foresaw that taxing land would abate the overpricing of land that at times forced rates of return down toward zero. How do we know he was correct? Because George's propaganda bore fruit, even though not in the 100% manner that he favored. Americans turned to the property tax more heavily than ever in the 40 years after he wrote, and assessors were under a new pressure to value buildings lower and land higher. Many of George's leading champions were assessors, who wrote new manuals on land assessment and led a very practical movement to stretch the latitude of assessors in the direction of upvaluing land and downvaluing improvements. They also followed the election returns. In 1916, a "pure single tax" Constitutional Amendment won 45% of the votes in California. Elected officials do not ignore large minorities, but shade their activities to mollify the minority. In 1934, Upton Sinclair nearly won the Governorship of California, on a platform that included a lot of Henry George.

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Chapter 4:
"Of the Changes That Would Be Wrought in Social Organization and Social Life"

1. Does George see self-interest or greed as the motor of human progress? 457-72

No, that is a Chicago School perversion. Here is an inspiring sermon on what people do to win respect.

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