I do object to James Ahiakpor's rather characteristically patronising message.   
   
If he bothered to pay close attention to my earlier posts there is no reason for his
assuming that (after he has privileged us with the final word on the subject) I must now
have seen the light -- that I have been merely covetous of my neighbour's wealth. As it
happens I may well be personally disadvantaged by a shift from a tax on wage and
entrepreneurial income to a "tax" on the value of the valuable land to which I enjoy
exclusive benefits. It would operate just as if I were a tenant, but with secure
possession conditional upon my paying the rent.
   
(The pure rent would not be so difficult to identify. It is done all the time, which is
why tenants today happily pay a higher rent for identical properties in better locations.)
   
Though I personally may be disadvantaged by a land tax (which can be revenue neutral
overall) this may only be the immediate effect. I would benefit from correspondingly lower
taxes on my labour and genuine entrepreneurship. That would be an incentivising load off
my back. It would stimulate capitalistic development. Remember that Henry George was, in
principle, an advocate of "the Single Tax" and a relatively minimalist state. He most
definitely did not advocate a land tax as an additional tax. It is precisely James's
failure to appreciate the distinction between land and capital (in the social viewpoint)
that leads him to think of Georgists as "Marxists in disguise".
   
And, by the way (to answer a question asked by Pat Gunning), George did have a theory of
the business cycle based on the effect of speculation in land (_Progress and Poverty_, Bk.
V, cg.1, "The Primary Cause of Recurring Paroxysms of Industrial Depression").
   
And on the absolute relevance of elasticity of supply (which James sees as "another
diversion and a waste of time"), see Martin Feldstein, "The Surprising Incidence of a Tax
on Pure Rent", JPE, April 1977.
   
Roger Sandilands