Rural Solutions in the Industrial Age: Joseph Fels. the Single Tax, and Land Reform

Abstract

Joseph Fels, a wealthy Philadelphia soap manufacturer, subscribed to Henry George's single tax economic theory that considered land a natural resource to be used for the good of all citizens. A hefty single tax levied on land values was intended to replace all other forms of taxation, in effect forcing landowners holding property for speculative purposes to use their land productively or make it available to others. In theory, wealthy land monopolists would be forced to pay an equitable share of taxes while the amount paid by the working class would be lowered to a proportionate level. Following the Panic of 1893 and the ensuing four year depression, urban gardening programs were established in major urban areas to support unemployed workers. In 1897 Joseph Fels helped to establish and finance the Philadelphia Vacant Lots Cultivation Association, and later, the Vacant Lots Cultivation Society in London, in addition to several farming colonies in the English countryside. He also financed several experimental living communities based on the single tax: Fairhope in Alabama, Arden in Delaware, and Rose Valley in suburban Philadelphia. In addition, Fels supported single tax candidates, and corresponded with national and international reformers including Samuel Gompers, Booker T. Washington, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, and George Bernard Shaw. Fels was an equitable employer, a philanthropist, and a reformer who campaigned fervently for the rights of the working class until he died in 1914 at age sixty.