Answers to Diana's query have run this topic pretty well into the ground, but also shown
the high level of interest in it, so I'll stir the pot once more.  There is a good chapter
in Henry George's *Science of Political Economy* on "Cooperation: its two kinds". One
kind, of course, is "unconscious" cooperation via the market.
  
George is realistic enough to note, however, that land markets do not function well. They
function so poorly, indeed, that he likens them to a great cartel, even in the absence of
conscious cartels.
  
He is not content, however, to idolize commodity and capital markets in the Laputa of
abstract worship. He wants to untax them, all the way.  Chicago-schoolers, e.g. Harberger,
support taxes on capital.  They seem to think sales taxes are pretty good, too, and income
taxes. George can untax labor, commerce, and capital because he would support government
functions by taxing the ownership of land. The latter, he says, will rev up land markets
and make them more efficient.
  
Many earlier economists said the same thing.  Boisguillebert and Vauban lost favor with
Louis XIV by pointing it out. Spinoza wrote about it. Quesnay, Turgot, Smith, Mill and
others hinted at it as best they could. Historians of economics should be interested.
  
Mason Gaffney