by Dr. William Batt
Albany, NY
Our own Professor Nicolaus Tideman was invited to
deliver the spring, 2004, presentation to the Economics and
Finance Department of Scranton University on May 6. In
fact he gave three presentations, one to an audience
largely of faculty and local government officials at a
noontime luncheon, a second in during late afternoon to the
assembled students of the various classes, and an evening
after-dinner presentation to students and faculty honoring
the school's chapter of Omicron Delta Epsilon, the
economics honor society. Nic Tideman's seminar title was
"Measuring the Benefits of Shifting Taxes to Land," and
his evening presentation was the 13th Annual Spring Henry
George Program lecture "Morality and Economic Justice."
The delightful part of this twice yearly event is
that it is gaining in visibility, having now had among its
guests some five subsequent Nobel prize-winning laureates.
Although that will not impress our Georgist community, it
is significant that it is called the Henry George Lecture
series, and brings to the attention of leading economics
figures the intellectual contribution of George. Scranton
University years ago received a grant from the Robert
Schalkenbach Foundation, one of four universities so
favored. The trustees of the school invested the money
well, and that endowment now is used to highlight Georgist
thought each fall and spring. Each year a few
representatives from the board of directors of Schalkenbach
are invited to the event in gratitude and recognition of
this gift. The representatives this spring were Bill Batt,
Ted Gwartney (who conducted a discussion session at the
luncheon on assessment matters), Schalkenbach Acting
Executive Director Mark Sullivan, and of course Dr.
Tideman, himself. Others who attended that are well known
among our Georgist community were Wyn Achenbaum and Joshua
Vincent, who is the director of the Center for the Study of
Economics. As has always been true, the arrangements were
graciously handled by Professor Hong Nguyen, a member of
the Scranton University economics faculty.
Nic Tideman's noontime presentation addressed
matters of fairness, but quickly shifted to questions from
the assembled guests, most of whom had concerns about
assessments. Some were assessors themselves, yet there was
no great familiarity with land value taxation as Georgists
espouse. Because this was new material for most of them,
the most that could be expected was introducing them to the
experiences of some twenty municipalities in Pennsylvania
that employ this approach. Fortunately Josh Vincent was
able to make contact with the local leaders who showed
interest, offering opportunities for later follow up.
The 4:00 pm presentation Nic made to
students and faculty was a rendition of a formal paper
titled "The Case for Taxing Land," it begins as follows:
"There is a case for taxing land based on ethical
principles and a case for taxing land based on efficiency
principles. As a matter of logic, these two cases are separate. Ethical conclusions follow
from ethical premises and efficiency conclusions from
efficiency principles. However, it is natural for human
minds to conflate the two cases. It is easier to believe
that something is good if one knows that it is efficient,
and it is easier to see that something is efficient if one
believes that it is good. Therefore it is important for a
discussion of land taxation to address both question of
efficiency and questions of ethics."
The remainder of the paper made his case, the
efficiency case with lots of formulas and graphics, the
equity case more simply using deductive logic. He later
made clear that he's willing to share that paper with
others in the Georgist community that may wish to have it.
It is worth reading.
(Editor's note: "The Case for Taxing Land" is now posted
on the web at http://www.econ.vt.edu/research.php?2004 )
The evening presentation was billed as the keynote
of the day, and in past years it has been. Due to the
exigencies of the schedule Nic Tideman was forced to
simplify his moral argument and cut short his presentation.
Fortunately, his voluminous other writing amplifies the
thrust of his thinking, and few others have given as
extended an argument as Nic has.
(Editor's note: At GroundSwell's request, Dr.
Tideman has granted permission to publish his paper,
"Morality and Economic Justice" in this issue of
GroundSwell.)
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Dr. William Batt is a member of the Board of
Directors of the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation and may be
emailed at hwbatt@yahoo.com