It is remarkable how doctrines that have been refuted  
time and again can still be touted by reviewers as  
having merit today. If there is an unearned increment  
and if it could be isolated, it could be taxed without  
doing any damage. But it is simply not feasible in the  
vast majority of cases to determine what per cent, if  
any, of the current rent on a piece of land is  
unearned. Some is due to improvements and some to  
making a superior appraisal and thus setting it aside  
for a specific use. Only an omniscient being could  
succeed in a general sense in separating these  
contributors to the rent of a specific parcel of land.  
  
If one is really interested in taxing the unearned  
increment, he should advocate a tax on consumer  
surplus or on the positive externalities of  
technological advance.  
  
Nor is it more fair to tax owners of land than, say,  
to tax people who earn income because of their high  
IQs, natural beauty, or natural athletic skill.  
  
Davenport, Herbert J. "The Taxation of Unearned  
Increment,"Addresses and Proceedings of the  
National Conference on State and Local Taxation,  
November 1907.  
  
Davenport, H.(1910) "The Single Tax in the English  
Budget," Quarterly Journal of Economics, February,  
1910.  
  
Davenport, H. J.(1911) "The Extent and the  
Significance of the Unearned Increment," American  
Economic Review 1: 322-332)  
  
Davenport, H.(1917), "Theoretical Issues in the Single  
Tax," American Economic Review 7 (March): 1-30.  
  
Wieser, Friedrich A. von.(1960) "The Theory of Urban  
Ground Rent." In Louise Sommer. (ed) Essays in  
European Economic Thought." London: D. Van Nostrand.  
(Originally published in German 1909)  
  
  
Pat Gunning