ABSTRACT

Tolstoy became acquainted with the works of Henry George as he was writing his treatise “What Then Should We Do?” George’s economic ideas fascinated him so much that he stepped away from the treatise to spend time trying to comprehend the American economist’s solutions. At first, the project of a single land tax did not appeal to him, and he writes in his treatise, “George proposes we recognize all land as state property, and therefore all taxes, both direct and indirect, should be replaced by rents. That is, everyone who uses the land should pay the state the value of its rent. What would that be? … It would be slavery, as determined by the volume of land use.” However, from the moment he read Progress and Poverty and Social Problems Tolstoy unequivocally agreed with George’s position that “private ownership of land is theft,” though it took time for him to comprehend and adopt George’s position on the single land tax.

摘要

托尔斯泰在写他的论文“那我们应该怎么做？”时开始熟悉亨利乔治的作品。乔治的经济思想让他如此着迷，以至于他离开了这篇论文，花时间试图理解这位美国经济学家的解决方案。起初，单一土地税的计划对他没有吸引力，他在论文中写道：“乔治建议我们承认所有土地为国有财产，因此所有直接和间接的税收都应该由地租代替。也就是说，每个使用土地的人都应该向国家支付其租金的价值。那会是什么？......这将是奴隶制，由土地使用量决定。” 然而，从他阅读《进步与贫困与社会问题》的那一刻起托尔斯泰明确同意乔治的立场，即“土地私有制就是盗窃”，尽管他需要时间来理解和采纳乔治关于单一土地税的立场。