C. Lowell Harriss’s research while affiliated with Columbia University and other places

Dozens of important issues are connected with the proposal of flat-rate income taxation How much, if any, activity would leave the underground economy for the reported one? Would effort and saving change? Would efficiency in the allocation of business and personal resources he effected? High rates of taxation and differences in tax rates influence behavior for better or worse. Serious proposals to change them deserve serious consideration, but difficult though not insuperable problems are involved and must be studied.

Henry George, in the judgment of Joseph Schumpeter, was an economist, self taught but, for his time, a century ago, well taught. George's writings can serve mankind constructively today. He wrote brilliantly in showing the destructiveness for human well-being of tariffs which obstruct international trade. His language shows clearly why such impediments to trade wastefully depress levels of living and opportunity. George foresaw some of the more sophisticated reasons why socialism could not be economically successful and also why it would threaten human freedom. Regarding the possibilities of reducing poverty, however, George has not been fully confirmed by a century's experience. But the reasoning that underlies his case for relying on land taxation for government revenue deserves serious attention today.

In this paper, Professor Harriss connects the historic debate about using up nonrenewable resources and its impacts on future generations with the need to help finance government in less disruptive ways. He explains the Georgist program of taxing “economic rents” either directly by a rent tax or indirectly by a severance tax.