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To educate men who must be condemned to poverty, is but to make them restive; to base on a state of most glaring social inequality political institutions under which men are theoretically equal, is to stand a pyramid on its apex. But it also shows that these evils are not imposed by natural laws; that they spring solely from social mal-adjustments which ignore natural laws, and that in removing their cause we shall be giving an enormous impetus to progress.
Equality of political rights will not compensate for the denial of the equal right to the bounty of nature. Political liberty, when the equal right to land is denied, becomes, as population increases and invention goes on, merely the liberty to compete for employment at starvation wages.
This is the truth that we have ignored. And so there come beggars in our streets and tramps on our roads; and poverty enslaves men whom we boast are political sovereigns; and want breeds ignorance that our schools cannot enlighten; and citizens vote as their masters dictate; and the demagogue usurps the part of the statesman; and gold weighs in the scales of justice; and in high places sit those who do not pay to civic virtue even the compliment of hypocrisy; and the pillars of the republic that we thought so strong already bend under an increasing strain.
We honor Liberty in name and in form. We set up her statues and sound her praises. As corruption becomes chronic; as public spirit is lost; as traditions of honor, virtue and patriotism are weakened; as law is brought into contempt and reforms become hopeless; then in the festering mass will be generated volcanic forces, which shatter and rend when seeming accident give them vent.
Strong, unscrupulous men and women, rising up, upon occasion will become the exponents of blind popular desires or fierce popular passions and dash aside forms that have lost their vitality.
The sword will again be mightier than the pen, and carnivals of destructive brute force and wild frenzy will alternate with the lethargy of a declining civilization. Whence shall come the new barbarians? Go through the squalid quarters of great cities, and you may see, even now, their gathering hordes. How shall learning perish? Men and women will cease to read, and books will kindle fires. In the decline of civilization, communities do not go down by the same path by which they came up.
For instance, the decline of civilization as manifested in government would not take us back from republicanism to constitutional monarchy, and thence to the feudal system; it would take us to emperorship and anarchy. Where Liberty rises, there virtue grows, wealth increases, knowledge expands, invention multiplies human powers and in strength and spirit the freer nation rises among her neighbors.
Where Liberty sinks, there virtues fade, wealth diminishes, knowledge is forgotten, invention ceases and empires once mighty in arms and arts become helpless prey to freer barbarians.
Only in broken gleams and partial light has the sun of Liberty yet beamed among men and women, but all progress hath she called forth. Shall we not trust Liberty? In our time as in times before, insidious forces that produce inequality are destroying Liberty.
On the horizon the clouds begin to lower. Liberty calls to us again. It is not enough that men and women should vote; it is not enough that they should be theoretically equal before the law. They must have liberty to avail themselves of the opportunities and means of life; they must stand on equal terms with reference to the bounty of nature.
This is the universal law. This is the lesson of the centuries. Unless its foundations be laid in justice the social structure of the United States or any other country cannot stand. Director, Madison Ave. Stoner, Pres. Box , South Beloit, IL Email NadStoner aol. Joshua Vincent, Pres. Phone Email: CenterFortheStudyofeconomics msn. Email: WaltRybeck aol. Alfred Katzenberger, Jr. Louis, MO Red links have not been visited;. Green links are pages you've seen.
Essential Documents. Wealth and Want. The Riddle During the 19th century the U. Land, Labor, Capital Land, labor, and capital are the three factors of production. The term land as used herein, is intended to include all natural resources, such as the earth and all its locations, minerals, oil and waterfalls as untouched by human hands; the term labor , all human exertion whether by brain or brawn or both; the term capital , all wealth such as tools, machinery, investments and goods in process of exchange used to produce more wealth.
The return to each factor is distributed as follows: landowners get the part called rent , laborers whether by brain or by brawn, or both the part called wages , and capital the part called interest. Effect of Material Progress Upon the Distribution of Wealth: The term wealth means anything of value produced by human effort. The Problem Solved There is a reason, in spite of the increase of productive power, wages constantly tend to a minimum which will give a bare living.
The Remedy The equal right of all men and women to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air. It was not nobility that gave land, but the possession of land that gave nobility. Effects of the Remedy The advantage which will be gained by substituting for the many taxes by which the public revenues are now raised, a single just charge levied upon the value of locations, will appear more and more important the more it is considered. The Law of Human Progress Civilization is cooperation.
And it is impossible to do other-wise with his teaching, for he who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree This book changed my life. I still remember when I first got ahold of a copy. I was in my uncle's study. He cannot walk very well, and so there are piles of books all around his desk. As I was looking through maybe the dozenth pile, I found a non-descript red book with black binding, the title faded with age.
I'm glad that that was the book I took home because in it were ideas that I found so compelling I would make it my life's goal to help realise them. The central idea of Progress and Poverty This book changed my life.
The central idea of Progress and Poverty is that land, namely the Earth and its natural resources, belong to all people. George proposes how this ideal may be achieved in practice: a full tax on land values. Working from first principles and refined definitions, George examines how our privatest economic system, in which the private ownership of land is not only allowed but encouraged, leads to massive unearned benefits for landowners at the expense of labourers and capitalists.
It is impossible to escape the scale of the injustice that George illustrates in his writing. George's style commendably blends emotive examples and clear reasoning into a masterpiece of analytical and persuasive thought. At times it reads like poetry. But it is the content, not the style, that is the true substance of George's work. If you seek to understand economics and poverty, beyond the mere indoctrination you undertook at university, and would pull back the curtain on the greatest injustice in our times, sit down and start reading this book until the final word.
The land value tax is the future of politics globally — be informed. Apr 08, Dina rated it liked it. Some people engage in sexual sadomasochism, whilst I prefer an intellectual one. Henry is of course a progressive, and apart from the slight tendency to go off on a tandem, the book makes lots of sense.
So, following in the steps of going off on a tandem, the past years of human history is the repetition of the present reality. Few usurp everything, and let the rest of us to be slaves, then they call it democracy, opportunity, hard work or whatever else nice sounding name they can come up wi Some people engage in sexual sadomasochism, whilst I prefer an intellectual one.
Few usurp everything, and let the rest of us to be slaves, then they call it democracy, opportunity, hard work or whatever else nice sounding name they can come up with. In a way that earth wasn't created for one to own, privatize and sell, and that one is only entitled to his own product. Though quite simple in its original premise in reality it gets rather complicated.
I am all for taxing the land values, I am all for the fact that increase of population increases the value of land. I mean read it if only to see that nothing much has changed, and we are dealing with the same problems in 21st century we dealt with in 18th. I spent the day reading this yesterday, I was already familiar with all of the points George made in this excellent book, however, I was blown away by the clarity.
This is must obviously be partly due to Henry George himself but I also think that this edition has managed to filter through the essence of the points being made without using arcane language at any point. I think George is ultimately wrong, but it is nevertheless one of those classic works that should be read.
Feb 14, Brent Ranalli rated it it was amazing Shelves: environmental-studies , deep-history , economics , politics-society , 19th-century , philosophy. The masterpiece of a wildly under-rated thinker. Every educated person ought to be acquainted with George's core ideas, which stand up well against the test of time unlike, say, those of Marx, who can go take a bath.
There are many abridged editions, which are probably fine for the casual reader. But even to read the long original is a pleasure, he writes with such polish and passion. Sep 03, Matt is currently reading it. Old ideas on economics and taxation who's time may have finally come. Oct 04, Kevin Carson rated it really liked it.
The treatment of Ricardian differential rent -- differentiated by location rather than fertility in his formulation -- is excellent. His "natural productivity" theory of interest is nonsense. Oct 02, Peter Morgan rated it liked it. Constantly oscillates between galaxy brain and meme galaxy brain. Feb 21, Sandrine marked it as to-read Shelves: skimmed-a-bit.
Jun 15, Samuel Marete rated it it was amazing Shelves: economics , economics-true. I wanted my first review on this website to be about this seminal, epochal work, which is probably the most important secular book I will ever read. I am someone who commenced a Masters in Economics, and I am the first to confess that I have not applied myself as I should have, which is why the Masters remains as yet unfinished.
Hence began the eternal journey of the I wanted my first review on this website to be about this seminal, epochal work, which is probably the most important secular book I will ever read. Hence began the eternal journey of the mind toward Truth: if we are to make people's lives better from an economic standpoint, what really must we do?
It is in the midst of my wanderings, gently prodded on by the memory of one-liners from my high school Ethics teacher, that I stumbled upon Progress and Poverty. I will start by saying that this book is not an easy read. It is not a Saturday evening, slippers-and-a-warm-fire read. But it is a Goodread, and that is why we are here, is it not? It is in fact an incredible study, containing many profound truths. I shall attempt to give my own experience of it; if you feel compelled to laugh at the foolishness I harboured before I read it I certainly understand.
But by way of example: I learnt that the factors of production are Land, Labour and Capital. Well, I had learnt this in high school Business Education. What Henry George said, is that this being the case, then naturally the returns from production are shared among these three factors.
Mr George's central premise is that the returns to land itself a metaphor for the earth and all its resources should be realized by all people; that people own the earth and its resources in common, and that the returns to land should therefore be realized in common.
This would appear to negate the concept of private ownership of land or property. Mr George's elegant solution to allowing private ownership of land while causing the returns to land to be commonly realized was a land-value tax, that takes the enjoyment of economic rent i. All this he says while demonstrating a power of logic and a mastery over language that seem almost other-worldly. It might be worthwhile to think, for a moment, about just a few of the implications of this simple premise.
Here are a few: 1. Implementing this would immediately make owning idle land unprofitable. Living, as we do, in a country where vast tracts of land are "owned" without putting them to optimum use - indeed, to any use at all - taxing the ownership of such land would in short order cause the sale, or the lease, or the use of that land; anything to enable the payment of the land-value tax. All of these outcomes would be nationally, economically beneficial.
That only land ownership should be taxed, and that therefore labour and capital should not be taxed. Mr George states that to tax anything is to discourage it, and this is one of the reasons that taxing land values would discourage private landownership, unless the landowner was doing something with that land that would enable them to pay the land-value tax. Being more specific, to tax human endeavor is to discourage it, and therefore such endeavor should not be taxed.
Imagine the effect on any economy of allowing people to realize the full benefit of their labour. Would this not be just?
That the benefit from ownership of naturally-occurring wealth, for example, should be publicly realized. No more private fortunes in oil, or gold, or diamonds, or the electromagnetic spectrum That the most prime real estate in New York, or Nairobi, or London - that the "owners" of this prime real estate should realize from owning it only such benefit as accrues from their improvement of that land eg by building upon it, not merely from their "ownership" of it.
That Apple and Amazon and Google and Microsoft could not evade federal taxes any longer by pretending to be operating out of Ireland, so long as they had offices campuses!
A land-value tax is not evade-able. In too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice. And, given that this book received praise from personalities as diverse as Churchill, Einstein and Tolstoy - given that the book sold several million copies in the s, second only to the Bible - given that it is estimated that , people thronged the Grand Central Palace to pay their last respects to Mr George after he died in - that its principles did not take root may not be mere accident.
There are those who say, not without evidence, that economic scholarship actively worked actively to refute Mr George's work after its publication, chiefly by conflating land and capital, thereby causing the discussion of land as a factor of production to disappear from active consideration by economic scholarship. I live in hope that one thousand years from now, Mr George's work will live on, while modern economics with all its attempts to mathematicise life and the human experience, will have long been consigned to the dustbin of history.
Jun 28, Chelsea rated it it was amazing. One of the things I love about reading older economic texts is seeing how certain ideas come back again and again throughout history.
His chapter on all the various solutions people propose to wage inequity is a great example of this - co-ops, unions, government intervention: all ideas people have been arguing about for a long time. George proposes instead that the root cause of inequity is profiting off of land, and that this mode of production should be owned and taxed by the state, vs private One of the things I love about reading older economic texts is seeing how certain ideas come back again and again throughout history.
George proposes instead that the root cause of inequity is profiting off of land, and that this mode of production should be owned and taxed by the state, vs private owners. I need to read more critiques, but overall, seems like a good idea to me? Solid critique of Ricardo's theory of differential rent. Points out what's obvious to a lot of people now that progress can lead to poverty as land develops and rents rise faster than wages.
Jun 27, Eugene Kernes rated it it was amazing Shelves: economics. The question that is being answered in this book is why does poverty follow wealth. Many wealthy urban cities, have citizens that are wealthy, but the city also has more people in poverty.
The way wealth is divided, going to either interest capital , wage labor , and rent landlord , determines how much poverty there is in the city. Rent is the enemy in this story. Labor produces wealth by providing useful value to resources.
Capital allows labor to be more productive. With capital, each worker The question that is being answered in this book is why does poverty follow wealth. With capital, each worker has more value.
The problem is rent, for rent does not add to wealth. Rent just takes income and profit away from those that provide wealth.
Ownership of land means the subjugation of the worker by taking away mean of productions, giving more power to the land owner. Population amount does not create poverty. With fertile land, a single individual would not be produce much wealth. Where the land does not have much resources, many people can subdivide their time to produce a lot of wealth.
With more people, each person can create more wealth. For every argument that Henry George makes, he points out many counterclaims that others have made. Rather than putting the different theories on the sidelines, they are just as central to the story as what George is trying to explain.
The solution the author proposed was to make all land common. Pointing out that every party will benefit via the ability to produce more wealth. The problem he failed to clarify is who is to make the decision on the land, as in who gets to actually use the land when it is common. The general case solution is to pay only for improvements and maintenance. Ownership of land should not entitle others to take a share in income while providing nothing in return.
May 15, Ernest Barker rated it did not like it. George fails to recognize that the people in poverty that live in a country that has made good industrial progress live far better than people that live in countries that are considered backward.
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