As civilization progresses, the economic benefits tend
to be concentrated in a single class: those who own our best land,
whether through corporate shares, family trusts, university endowments,
pension funds, REITs, or other forms of ownership -- most quite concentrated
in the top percentiles of the wealth distribution. But there is an alternative,
a simple way to use a just tax to collect those
benefits for the commons.
Henry George: The
Increasing Importance of Social Questions (Chapter 1 of Social
Problems, 1883)
[03] Between the development of society and the development of species
there is a close analogy. In the lowest forms of animal life there is
little difference of parts; both wants and powers are few and simple;
movement seems automatic; and instincts are scarcely distinguishable
from those of the vegetable. So homogeneous are some of these living
things, that if cut in pieces, each piece still lives. But as life rises
into higher manifestations, simplicity gives way to complexity, the parts
develop into organs having separate functions and reciprocal relations,
new wants and powers arise, and a greater and greater degree of intelligence
is needed to secure food and avoid danger. Did fish, bird or beast possess
no higher intelligence than the polyp, nature could bring them forth
only to die.
[04] This law — that the increasing complexity and delicacy of
organization which give higher capacity and increased power are accompanied
by increased wants and dangers, and require, therefore, increased intelligence — runs
through nature. In the ascending scale of life at last comes man, the
most highly and delicately organized of animals. Yet not only do his
higher powers require for their use a higher intelligence than exists
in other animals, but without higher intelligence he could not live.
His skin is too thin; his nails too brittle; he is too poorly adapted
for running, climbing, swimming or burrowing. Were he not gifted with
intelligence greater than that of any beast, he would perish from cold,
starve from inability to get food, or be exterminated by animals better
equipped for the struggle in which brute instinct suffices.
[05] In man, however, the intelligence which increases all through nature's
rising scale passes at one bound into an intelligence so superior, that
the difference seems of kind rather than degree. In him, that narrow
and seemingly unconscious intelligence that we call instinct becomes
conscious reason, and the godlike power of adaptation and invention makes
feeble man nature's king.
[06] But with man the ascending line stops. Animal life assumes no higher
form; nor can we affirm that, in all his generations, man, as an animal,
has a whit improved. But progression in another line begins. Where the
development of species ends, social development commences, and that advance
of society that we call civilization so increases human powers, that
between savage and civilized man there is a gulf so vast as to suggest
the gulf between the highly organized animal and the oyster glued to
the rocks. And with every advance upon this line new vistas open. When
we try to think what knowledge and power progressive civilization may
give to the men of the future, imagination fails.
[07] In this progression which begins with man, as in that which leads
up to him, the same law holds. Each advance makes a demand for higher
and higher intelligence. With the beginnings of society arises the need
for social intelligence — for that consensus of individual intelligence
which forms a public opinion, a public conscience, a public will, and
is manifested in law, institutions and administration. As society develops,
a higher and higher degree of this social intelligence is required, for
the relation of individuals to each other becomes more intimate and important,
and the increasing complexity of the social organization brings liability
to new dangers.
[08] In the rude beginning, each family produces its own food, makes
its own clothes, builds its own house, and, when it moves, furnishes
its own transportation. Compare with this independence the intricate
interdependence of the denizens of a modern city. They may supply themselves
with greater certainty, and in much greater variety and abundance, than
the savage; but it is by the cooperation of thousands. Even the water
they drink, and the artificial light they use, are brought to them by
elaborate machinery, requiring the constant labor and watchfulness of
many men. They may travel at a speed incredible to the savage; but in
doing so resign life and limb to the care of others. A broken rail, a
drunken engineer, a careless switchman, may hurl them to eternity. And
the power of applying labor to the satisfaction of desire passes, in
the same way, beyond the direct control of the individual. The laborer
becomes but part of a great machine, which may at any time be paralyzed
by causes beyond his power, or even his foresight. Thus does the well-being
of each become more and more dependent upon the well-being of all — the
individual more and more subordinate to society.
[12] Nor should we forget that in civilized man still lurks the savage.
The men who, in past times, oppressed or revolted, who fought to the
death in petty quarrels and drunk fury with blood, who burned cities
and rent empires, were men essentially such as those we daily meet. Social
progress has accumulated knowledge, softened manners, refined tastes
and extended sympathies, but man is yet capable of as blind a rage as
when, clothed in skins, he fought wild beasts with a flint. And present
tendencies, in some respects at least, threaten to kindle passions that
have so often before flamed in destructive fury.
[13] There is in all the past nothing to compare with the rapid changes
now going on in the civilized world. It seems as though in the European
race, and in the nineteenth century, man was just beginning to live — just
grasping his tools and becoming conscious of his powers. The snail's
pace of crawling ages has suddenly become the headlong rush of the locomotive,
speeding faster and faster. This rapid progress is primarily in industrial
methods and material powers. But industrial changes imply social changes
and necessitate political changes. Progressive societies outgrow institutions
as children outgrow clothes. Social progress always requires greater
intelligence in the management of public affairs; but this the more as
progress is rapid and change quicker.
[14] And that the rapid changes now going on are bringing up problems
that demand most earnest attention may be seen on every hand. Symptoms
of danger, premonitions of violence, are appearing all over the civilized
world. Creeds are dying, beliefs are changing; the old forces of conservatism
are melting away. Political institutions are failing, as clearly in democratic
America as in monarchical Europe. There is growing unrest and bitterness
among the masses, whatever be the form of government, a blind groping
for escape from conditions becoming intolerable. To attribute all this
to the teachings of demagogues is like attributing the fever to the quickened
pulse. It is the new wine beginning to ferment in old bottles. To put
into a sailing-ship the powerful engines of a first-class ocean steamer
would be to tear her to pieces with their play. So the new powers rapidly
changing all the relations of society must shatter social and political
organizations not adapted to meet their strain.
[15] To adjust our institutions to growing needs and changing conditions
is the task which devolves upon us. Prudence, patriotism, human sympathy,
and religious sentiment, alike call upon us to undertake it. There is
danger in reckless change; but greater danger in blind conservatism.
The problems beginning to confront us are grave — so grave that
there is fear they may not be solved in time to prevent great catastrophes.
But their gravity comes from indisposition to recognize frankly and grapple
boldly with them.
[16] These dangers, which menace not one country alone, but modern civilization
itself, do but show that a higher civilization is struggling to be born — that
the needs and the aspirations of men have outgrown conditions and institutions
that before sufficed.
[17] A civilization which tends to concentrate wealth and power in the
hands of a fortunate few, and to make of others mere human machines,
must inevitably evolve anarchy and bring destruction. But a civilization
is possible in which the poorest could have all the comforts and conveniences
now enjoyed by the rich; in which prisons and almshouses would be needless,
and charitable societies unthought of. Such a civilization waits only
for the social intelligence that will adapt means to ends. Powers that
might give plenty to all are already in our hands. Though there is poverty
and want, there is, yet, seeming embarrassment from the very excess of
wealth-producing forces. "Give us but a market," say manufacturers, "and
we will supply goods without end!" "Give us but work!" cry
idle men.
[18] The evils that begin to appear spring from the fact that the application
of intelligence to social affairs has not kept pace with the application
of intelligence to individual needs and material ends. Natural science
strides forward, but political science lags. With all our progress in
the arts which produce wealth, we have made no progress in securing its
equitable distribution. Knowledge has vastly increased; industry and
commerce have been revolutionized; but whether free trade or protection
is best for a nation we are not yet agreed. We have brought machinery
to a pitch of perfection that, fifty years ago, could not have been imagined;
but, in the presence of political corruption, we seem as helpless as
idiots. The East River bridge is a crowning triumph of mechanical skill;
but to get it built a leading citizen of Brooklyn had to carry to New
York sixty thousand dollars in a carpet bag to bribe New York aldermen.
The human soul that thought out the great bridge is prisoned in a crazed
and broken body that lies bedfast, and could watch it grow only by peering
through a telescope. Nevertheless, the weight of the immense mass is
estimated and adjusted for every inch. But the skill of the engineer
could not prevent condemned wire being smuggled into the cable.
[19] The progress of civilization requires that more and more intelligence
be devoted to social affairs, and this not the intelligence of the few,
but that of the many. We cannot safely leave politics to politicians,
or political economy to college professors. The people themselves must
think, because the people alone can act.
[20] In a "journal of civilization" a professed teacher declares
the saving word for society to be that each shall mind his own business.
This is the gospel of selfishness, soothing as soft flutes to those who,
having fared well themselves, think everybody should be satisfied. But
the salvation of society, the hope for the free, full development of
humanity, is in the gospel of brotherhood — the gospel of Christ.
Social progress makes the well-being of all more and more the business
of each; it binds all closer and closer together in bonds from which
none can escape. He who observes the law and the proprieties, and cares
for his family, yet takes no interest in the general weal, and gives
no thought to those who are trodden under foot, save now and then to
bestow aims, is not a true Christian. Nor is he a good citizen. The duty
of the citizen is more and harder than this.
[21] The intelligence required for the solving of social problems is
not a thing of the mere intellect. It must be animated with the religious
sentiment and warm with sympathy for human suffering. It must stretch
out beyond self-interest, whether it be the self-interest of the few
or of the many. It must seek justice. For at the bottom of every social
problem we will find a social wrong. ..
read the entire essay
Henry George: Moses,
Apostle of Freedom (1878 speech)
In the full blaze of the
nineteenth century, when every child in our schools may know as common
truths things of which the Egyptian sages never dreamed; when the earth
has been mapped and the stars have been weighed; when steam and
electricity have been pressed into our service, and science is wresting
from nature secret after secret – it is but natural to look back upon
the wisdom of three thousand years ago as an adult looks back upon the
learning of a child.
And yet,
for all this wonderful increase of knowledge, for all this
enormous gain of productive power, where is the country in the
civilised world in which today there is not want and suffering – where
the masses are not condemned to toil that gives no leisure, and all
classes are not pursued by a greed of gain that makes life an ignoble
struggle to get and to keep? Three thousands years of advances,
and still the moan goes up: "They have made our lives bitter with hard
bondage, in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service!" Three
thousand years of advances! and the piteous voices of little children
are in the moan. ...
Over ocean wastes far wider than
the Syrian desert we have sought
our promised land – no narrow strip between the mountains and
the sea, but a wide and virgin continent. Here, in greater freedom,
with vaster knowledge and fuller experience, we are building up a
nation that leads the van of modern progress. And yet while we prate
of the rights of humanity there are already many among us thousands
who find it difficult to assert the first of natural rights – the right
to earn an honest living; thousands who from time to time must accept of
degrading charity or starve.
We boast of equality before the
law; yet notoriously justice is
deaf to the call of those who have no gold and blind to the sin of
those who have.
We pride ourselves upon our
common schools; yet after our boys
and girls are educated we vainly ask: "What shall we do with them?" And about
our colleges children are growing up in vice and crime, because from their
homes poverty has driven all refining influences.
We pin our faith to universal suffrage; yet with all power in the
hands of the people, the control of public affairs is passing into
the hands of a class of professional politicians, and our governments
are, in many cases, becoming but a means for robbery of the people.
We have prohibited hereditary
distinctions, we have forbidden
titles of nobility; yet there is growing up an aristocracy of wealth
as powerful and merciless as any that ever held sway. ... read the whole speech
Louis Post: Outlines of Louis F. Post's
Lectures, with Illustrative Notes and Charts (1894)
b. Normal Effect of Social Progress upon Wages and Rent
In the foregoing charts the effect of social growth is ignored, it being
assumed that the given expenditure of labor force does not become more productive.93
Let us now try to illustrate that effect, upon the supposition that social
growth increases the productive power of the given expenditure of labor force
as applied to the first closed space, to 100; as applied to the second, to
50; as applied to the third, to 10; as applied to the fourth, to 3, and as
applied to the open space, to 1. 94 If there were no increased demand for
land the chart would then be like this: [chart]
93. "The effect of increasing population upon the
distribution of wealth is to increase rent .. . in two ways: First, By
lowering the margin
of cultivation.
Second, By bringing out in land special capabilities otherwise latent,
and by attaching special capabilities to particular lands.
"I am disposed to think that the latter mode, to which little attention
has been given by political economists, is really the more important." — Progress
and Poverty, book iv, ch. iii.
"When we have inquired what it is that marks off land from those material
things which we regard as products of the land, we shall find that the fundamental
attribute of land is its extension. The right to use a piece of land gives
command over a certain space — a certain part of the earth's surface.
The area of the earth is fixed; the geometric relations in which any
particular part of it stands to other parts are fixed. Man has no control
over them;
they are wholly unaffected by demand; they have no cost of production;
there is no supply price at which they can be produced.
"The use of a certain area of the earth's surface is a primary condition
of anything that man can do; it gives him room for his own actions, with
the enjoyment of the heat and the light, the air and the rain which nature
assigns to that area; and it determines his distance from, and in great measure
his relations to, other things and other persons. We shall find that it is
this property of land, which, though as yet insufficient prominence has been
given to it, is the ultimate cause of the distinction which all writers are
compelled to make between land and other things." — Marshall's
Prin., book iv, ch. ii, sec. i.
94. Of course social growth does not go on in this regular way; the charts
are merely illustrative. They are intended to illustrate the universal fact
that as any land becomes a center of trade or other social relationship its
value rises.
Though Rent is now increased, so are Wages. Both benefit by social growth.
But if we consider the fact that increase in the productive power of labor
increases demand for land we shall see that the tendency of Wages (as a proportion
of product if not as an absolute quantity) is downward, while that of Rent
is upward. 95 And this conclusion is confirmed by observation. 96
95. "Perhaps it may be well to remind the reader, before closing this
chapter, of what has been before stated — that I am using the word
wages not in the sense of a quantity, but in the sense of a proportion. When
I say that wages fall as rent rises, I do not mean that the quantity of wealth
obtained by laborers as wages is necessarily less, but that the proportion
which it bears to the whole produce is necessarily less. The proportion may
diminish while the quantity remains the same or increases." — Progress
and Poverty, book iii, ch. vi.
96. The condition illustrated in the last chart would
be the result of social growth if all land but that which was in full
use were common land. The discovery
of mines, the development of cities and towns, and the construction of
railroads, the irrigation of and places, improvements in government,
all the infinite
conveniences and laborsaving devices that civilization generates, would
tend to abolish poverty by increasing the compensation of labor, and
making it
impossible for any man to be in involuntary idleness, or underpaid, so
long as mankind was in want. If demand for land increased, Wages would
tend to
fall as the demand brought lower grades of land into use; but they would
at the same time tend to rise as social growth added new capabilities
to the lower grades. And it is altogether probable that, while progress
would
lower Wages as a proportion of total product, it would increase them
as an absolute quantity. ...
Q32. Is not ownership of land necessary to induce its improvement? Does
not history show that private ownership is a step in advance of common
ownership?
A. No. Private use was doubtless a step in advance of common use. And because
private use seems to us to have been brought about under the institution of private
ownership, private ownership appears to the superficial to have been the real
advance. But a little observation and reflection will remove that impression.
Private ownership of land is not necessary to its private use. And so far from
inducing improvement, private ownership retards it. When a man owns land he may
accumulate wealth by doing nothing with the land, simply allowing the community
to increase its value while he pays a merely nominal tax, upon the plea that
he gets no income from the property. But when the possessor has to pay the value
of his land every year, as he would have to under the single tax, and as ground
renters do now, he must improve his holding in order to profit by it. Private
possession of land, without profit except from use, promotes improvement; private
ownership, with profit regardless of use, retards improvement. Every city in
the world, in its vacant lots, offers proof of the statement. It is the lots
that are owned, and not those that are held upon ground-lease, that remain vacant.
... read the book
Gems from George, a themed collection of
excerpts from the writings of Henry George (with links to sources)
FIVE centuries ago the wealth-producing power of England, man for man,
was small indeed compared with what it is now. Not merely were all the great
inventions and discoveries which since the Introduction of steam have revolutionized
mechanical industry then undreamed of, but even agriculture was far ruder
and less productive. Artificial grasses had not been discovered. The potato,
the carrot, the turnip, the beet, and many other plants and vegetables which
the farmer now finds most prolific, had not been introduced. The advantages
which ensue from rotation of crops were unknown. Agricultural implements
consisted of the spade, the sickle, the flail, the rude plow and the harrow.
Cattle had not been bred to more than one-half the size they average now,
and sheep did not yield half the fleece. Roads, where there were roads, were
extremely bad, wheel vehicles scarce and rude, and places a hundred miles
from each other were, in difficulties of transportation, practically as far
apart as London and Hong Kong, or San Francisco and New York, are now.
Yet patient students of those times tell us that the condition of the English
laborer was not only relatively, but absolutely better in those rude times
than it is in England today, after five centuries of advance in the productive
arts. They tell us that the workingman did not work so hard as he does now,
and lived better; that he was exempt from the harassing dread of being forced
by loss of employment to want and beggary, or of leaving a family that must
apply to charity to avoid I starvation. Pauperism as it prevails in the rich
England of the nineteenth century was in the far poorer England of the fourteenth
century absolutely unknown. Medicine was empirical and superstitious, sanitary
regulations and precautions were all but unknown. There were frequently plague
and occasionally famine, for, owing to the difficulties of transportation,
the scarcity of one district could not "be relieved by the plenty of
another. But men did not as they do now, starve in the midst of abundance;
and what is perhaps the most significant fact of all is that not only were
women and children not worked as they are today, but the eight-hour system,
which even the working classes of the United States, with all the profusion
of labor-saving machinery and appliances have not yet attained, was then
the common system! — Protection or Free Trade — Chapter 22:
The Real Weakness of Free Trade.
MENTAL power is the motor of progress, and men tend to advance in proportion
to the mental power expended in progression — the mental power which
is devoted to the extension of knowledge, the improvement of methods, and
the betterment of social conditions. — Progress & Poverty — Book
X, Chapter 3, The Law of Human Progress
To compare society to a boat. Her progress through the water will not depend
upon the exertion of her crew, but upon the exertion devoted to propelling
her. This will be lessened by any expenditure of force required for baling,
or any expenditure of force in fighting among themselves or in pulling in
different directions.
Now, as in a separated state the whole powers of man are required to maintain
existence, and mental power is only set free for higher uses by the association
of men in communities, which permits the division of labor and all the economies
which come with the co-operation of increased numbers, association is the
first essential of progress. Improvement becomes possible as men come together
in peaceful association, and the wider and closer the association, the greater
the possibilities of improvement. And as the wasteful expenditure of mental
power in conflict becomes greater or less as the moral law which accords
to each an equality of rights is ignored or is recognized, equality (or justice)
is the second essential of progress.
Thus association in equality is the law of progress. Association frees mental
power for expenditure in improvement, and equality (or justice, or freedom — for
the terms here signify the same thing, the recognition of the moral law)
prevents the dissipation of this power in fruitless struggles. — Progress & Poverty — Book
X, Chapter 3, The Law of Human Progress
I BELIEVE that in a really Christian community, in a society that honored,
not with the lips but with the act, the doctrines of Jesus, no one would
have occasion to worry about physical needs any more than do the lilies
of the field. There is enough and to spare. The trouble is that, in this
mad struggle, we trample in the mire what has been provided in sufficiency
for us all; trample it in the mire while we tear and rend each other. — The
Crime of Poverty
WHOSE fault is it that social conditions are such that men have to make
that terrible choice between what conscience tells them is right, and the
necessity of earning a living? I hold that it is the fault of society; that
it is the fault of us all. Pestilence is a curse. The man who would bring
cholera to this country, or the man who, having the power to prevent its
coming here, would make no effort to do so, would be guilty of a crime. Poverty
is worse than cholera; poverty kills more people than pestilence, even in
the best of times. Look at the death statistics of our cities; see where
the deaths come quickest; see where it is that the little children die like
flies — it is in the poorer quarters. And the man who looks with careless
eyes upon the ravages of this pestilence; the man who does not set himself
to stay and eradicate it, he, I say, is guilty of a crime. — The Crime
of Poverty
SOCIAL progress makes the well-being of all more and more the business of
each; it binds all closer and closer together in bonds from which none can
escape. He who observes the law and the proprieties, and cares for his family,
yet takes no interest in the general weal, and gives no thought to those
who are trodden underfoot, save now and then to bestow alms, is not a true
Christian. Nor is he a good citizen. — Social Problems — Chapter
1, the Increasing Importance of Social Questions
WE cannot safely leave politics to politicians, or political economy to
college professors. The people themselves must think, because the people
alone can act. — Social Problems — Chapter 1, the Increasing
Importance of Social Questions
I AM convinced that we make a great mistake in depriving one sex of voice
in public matters, and that we could in no way so increase the attention,
the intelligence and the devotion which may be brought to the solution of
social problems as by enfranchising our women. Even if in a ruder state of
society the intelligence of one sex suffices for the management of common
interests, the vastly more intricate, more delicate and more important questions
which the progress of civilization makes of public moment, require the intelligence
of women as of men, and that we never can obtain until we interest them in
public affairs. And I have come to believe that very much of the inattention,
the flippancy, the want of conscience, which we see manifested in regard
to public matters of the greatest moment, arises from the fact that we debar
our women from taking their proper part in these matters. Nothing will fully
interest men unless it also interests women. There are those who say that
women are less intelligent than men; but who will say that they are less
influential? — Social Problems — Chapter 22: Conclusion
... go to "Gems from George"
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