New Pages

Fortune article: "Higher Taxes that Promote Development"

Completely glossed for easy reference and citing, this 1983 article about land value tax in Pennsylvania cities was the "swan song" for Fortune's retiring real-estate editor, Gurney Breckenfeld.

The Case for Land Value Tax

This is a sketch of the principle arguments for land value tax. Each argument will have its own page or set of pages as the site develops. (uploaded 2011.02.06)

Bastiat's Broken Window Error

Bastiat is popular with conservatives, economists of the Austian School, and neolibertarians. This shows how his oft cited "Broken Window Fallacy" errs by failing to distinguish between wealth from privilege and wealth from production. (uploaded 2011.01.26) 

Ethics of Democracy, by Louis F. Post

This 1906 classic examines buisness morality and political morality from a classically progressive perspective. It is equally critical of monopolistic capitalism and monopolistic socialism, with an indexing gloss of paragraphs in the left column. (uploaded 2010.12.28)

Housing Affordability and Real Estate Tax Rates

A ranking of cities by housing affordability in 2005, just before the bubble burst, and charts showing that cities with higher real estate taxes are more affordable than cities with low real estate taxes.

"Finance and Currency" by Congressman Benjamin Butler, 1869

This eloquent speech before Congress defends US Greenback Currency and devastates arguments for private bank currencies and specie currencies alike. It is long, but each topical paragraph is indexed in the left column.

The Core Issues

An overview of the issues that Saving Communities considers to be core issues. We plan to develop separate pages around each issue.

"How to Abolish Unfair Taxation," Speech by Clarence Darrow

Darrow explains why laws to help labor will fail until land monopoly is taxed away.

Four Minute Essays by Frank Crane

Frank Crane was a famous newspaper columnist whose "Four Minute Essays" were collected in a ten-volume set in 1919. We are posting essays from this set, beginning with the following:

"Delicacy -- The Flavor Of All The Virtues": How "Delicacy is 'to make virtue victorious by practising it attractively.'"

"The Dog In The Manger": How starvation would end if we stoped respecting the right to hold land out of use.

"The Fanatic And The Idealist": Fanatics as idealists who have become "drunk on their own vision."

"What Did We Get For Our Money?": Questions why the three St. Croix landowners who collected tribute from 25,000 under a Danish Flag should continue to collect tribute under an American Flag. Satarizes both Single-Taxer enthusiasm and mainstream dismissal.

"Theodore Roosevelt" A eulogy to President Roosevelt

"Rising Inequality and Falling [Farmland] Property Tax Rates," by Mason Gaffney

Prominent land economist Mason Gaffney shows how lowering taxes on farmland drives up farmland prices and gives a competitive advantage to corporate farms over family farms.