The Richest Man on Earth

1931 Dalton, [Charles] Test (1877-1945). The Richest Man on Earth. New York: Lowe Shearon. 256 pp. The PSt copy belonged to the publisher, is annotated by him, and includes a small packet of letters. A note by Shearon at the top of the first page of the text says that it was written by Dalton but “I supplied most of the facts” (5). DLC, ICRL, PSt

Reformed capitalist eutopia, known as the Plateau Republic, founded in Africa by an American. The basic idea is a voluntary limit on profit that the publisher of the book had developed where “managers of industrial enterprises and all those engaged in trade should state in advance a fee (so much per year) with which they will content themselves and prorate all surplus profits to the buyer in accordance with the amount of his purchases” (5-6). Labor unions are permitted. Workers receive a base pay sufficient to support a family and give college education to children. A single tax on land is the only tax and is used to pay government expenses. The author refers to Henry George (1839-97) but rejects the specifics of George’s single tax. A strong colonialist mentality pervades the book. Although the eutopia is brought about by a single, rich man, references are made throughout the book to Arthur Twining Hadley (1856-1930), an economist and President of Yale University as supporting the basic theory, and the two pages before the title page are a letter dated 1943 to his son from Shearon. Much of this annotation is taken from an email to me from Donald Morris, author of Taxation in Utopia: Required Sacrifice and the General Welfare. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2020, suggesting that I need to expand on my annotation. There is nothing on The Richest Man On Earth in the book.